


Eclipse

by Leona2016



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-03-12
Updated: 2019-02-02
Packaged: 2019-03-30 12:40:53
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 23
Words: 85,335
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13951755
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leona2016/pseuds/Leona2016
Summary: When he made her that offer it felt like an eclipse; the moon temporarily obscuring the radiance of the sun. But she could still see light encircling the shadowed orb. It gave her hope. She had come here to save Ben Solo. And that’s what she would do. As her fingertips grazed his gloved ones she knew how much he wanted to prove to her she belonged at his side. (currently posting this on ffdotnet so I figured might as well cross-post it here on AO3)





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter 1

The Throne Room around them was falling apart with a strange, misplaced grace. The eerily red fabric was soundlessly peeling off the bare, steel pillars hidden behind it; like flesh being ripped from the skeleton of the Supremacy by greedy and insatiable flames. Shreds consumed by fire were frantically spinning around their axis while flakes of blackened debris floated all around seemingly suspended in melancholic and endless twirls.    

Rey had instantly averted her eyes from the crumpled heap on the dais of the massive, imposing Throne. The glimpses she’d caught of wrinkled and contorted skin wrapped in a robe of finely woven gold had made her feel sick to her stomach. It had been harder to not have her gaze rove over the fallen Praetorian Guards: their armor glinted a fiery scarlet, their helmets were cleaved, their weapons -although broken- were still shooting malicious sparks and their limbs were bent in odd angles while blood languidly seeped from under their lifeless shapes and ran in rivulets over the smooth, black floor.   

But it was not over. Not yet.

Ben stood before her. Rigid. Determined. _Scared?_

The darker presence of Kylo Ren was still hovering close to the surface, his harsh revelation about her parents and his corrupted words drenched in an almost predatory craving for power still rang in her ears. But he looked at her now with Ben’s eyes. Hoping. Pleading. _Begging_.

She should be seeing her enemy. All she saw was a boy who had been sent away by his parents. For _what_ he could do. The abilities he had inherited. Not for _who_ he was.

A boy convinced that his Master was going to kill him.

A boy believing his own uncle had given up on him.

A boy that had been wounded and scared and had gone down a dark, treacherous path.

A boy that was lost. Who had turned hurt into violence.

A boy that had become the scarred man standing before her.

Rey’s gaze followed the thin, jagged line that intersected his brow then ran from the bridge of his nose and across his cheek before it curved around the ridge of where his upper jaw morphed into his neckline.

The scar _she_ had given him. She had left him to die once before. In that forest. His face and chest cut open. His blood staining the snow. _A monster_.

A monster that had killed his father.

A monster that had been a constant, peripheral presence through their Force bond.

A monster she had shouted at. Spat angry words at.

A monster she had talked to. Had gotten to know a little better. Who had wanted to know _her_.

A monster that had told her about Luke’s apparent betrayal.

A monster that had listened when she had told him about her encounter with the mirror.

A monster that had told her she was not alone.

A monster that had reached out to her when she had held out her hand to him in that hut on Ahch-To.

A monster she had seen in the vision that had struck her then.

A vision in which the monster was gone.

A vision in which he was Ben Solo.

She couldn’t turn her back and walk away from him a second time. It would break him. It would break _her_.

“Please..”

That one word sent chills down her spine. His wavering tone held such longing it was impossible to be deaf to it. To not feel her own longing to not be alone anymore resonate with it until her knees threatened to buckle with the yearning growing in volume and power as it seemed to pull and push between them like the tow of the tide; as it hit against her chest like waves.

“Stay with me..”

That final plea made her realize she had no choice. Or rather that she had already made it the moment she lied down in the Falcon’s escape pod and ordered Chewbacca to jettison her into the clutches of the First Order.

She only wished it had been different. That she didn’t have to betray the people who had taken her in. Who had given her a place to belong. A cause to fight for. Who _trusted_ her. Put their faith in her. Rey could only hope they would understand she was doing this for them too. To end this horrid war the only way she thought she could. If anything her short time on the island with Master Skywalker had made her see clearer. She knew her new found purpose was here. With _him_.

When Ben had made her that offer it felt like an eclipse; the moon temporarily obscuring the radiance of the sun. But she could still see light encircling the shadowed orb. It gave her hope. She had come here to save Ben Solo. And that’s what she would do. Rey had to believe she still could. She couldn’t give up now.

As her fingertips unbend and reached forward, as they lightly grazed his gloved ones Rey knew how much he wanted to prove to her she belonged at his side. His conviction was palpable like powerful and paralyzing ripples in the Force, causing her to momentarily freeze and hold her breath as if water was actually at her lips.

Apparently that daunting feeling of overwhelming expectation, of _feverish anticipation_ , was contagious because Ben’s gaze faltered and his hand withdrew an inch too. For a split second Rey feared he had perceived her hesitation as rejection. That she had waited too long. Been too lost in her internal debate about the road inevitably splitting into two before her. But then he looked up to her again, determination glinting in the depths of those dark eyes.

Jaw clenched Ben pulled off his glove and stretched out his hand towards her again. Coming from him it felt like the ultimate peace offering. A promise to trust each other.

Rey took a step closer before she could stop herself. Too eager. Too hurried. Her fingertips bumped clumsily into his. At first Ben’s eyes widened as if in disbelief. An almost boyish surprise lit up his eyes.

Then the hint of a grin tugging at the corners of his mouth enhanced the sense of exhilaration as fingers traveled closely passed each other, skin brushing skin until their hands clasped.

It was like it had been on Ahch-To. And yet it was totally different. It felt like an electric jolt spurred on her heart to thump harder against her ribs. It reminded her of that buzz crawling under her skin when she dislodged a power coupling from one of the many star destroyers half sunken in the Jakku desert like rotting carcasses of wires and steel. But if felt better. _Infinitely better_.

It felt _real_.

And the sensation grew stronger instead of fading after that first touch. Had she felt completely synchronized when they had fought together, feeling the warmth seep through his palm into hers now provided an anchor and simultaneously amplified her awareness of the Force surrounding them both. Going _through_ them both. His presence mingled with hers in a soothing storm she was too mesmerized by to ever want to take a step back from him again.

And then the deck below their feet canted. Shuddered. Making them lose their balance. Their hands slid loose as the ship shook from a colossal impact. They staggered to stay on their feet.

“What’s going on?” Rey cast an alarmed look around, feeling the tremor traveling through the floor penetrate her soles and rattling her very bones.

Ben whisked around and strode over to a computer terminal built into a pillar. He swept it free of grit and ash, fingers punching in a code and a set of commands. Rey hastened over to look over his shoulder but before she had reached him a holographic projection of the Supremacy burst into life.

Rey gasped.

_It had been nearly cut in half._

“Looks like your friends were so desperate they rammed their flagship into ours rather than save themselves.” Ben said, his tone clearly containing an echo of Kylo’s vengeful snarl.  

Before the horrifying truth of what she saw could sink in they both turned as one to the gaping mouth that led into and away from the Throne Room.

Footsteps. Brisk and staccato. Definitely coming their way.

“What do we do now?”  

The pronoun tasted foreign on her tongue, it made her cheeks burn when he effortlessly picked up on her own self-conscious realization of how she had already slipped into phrasing it like that.

“Now..” Ben said eagerly, an invisible mask sliding over his features as he squared his shoulders and straightened, “Now we improvise.”


	2. Chapter 2

Chapter 2

The blaster General Hux had instantly raised and aimed at Rey was still spinning across the floor in dizzying arcs when Ben had already slammed the man himself against the slanted window with a single Force push. He held him there, deriving no small amount of pleasure from seeing the man who had always competed with him for Snoke’s approval and had never wasted a moment to taunt him now pressed flat against the glass, eyes bulging as he sputtered and thrashed wildly about like a fish on land.

Once his anger flowed free it was always difficult to stem it again, but it would be foolish to crash the man through that window into space because that would have everything and everyone else in the Throne Room sucked into it too. Besides, he still needed Hux. _They_ needed him.

 _She had taken his hand_.

Rey’s presence at his side was as surreal as it was intoxicating. She had chosen _him_. Not the renegades she believed to be her friends and allies. Not the defected Stormtrooper. Not the cocky pilot. Not his uncle. _Him_.

 _She had taken his hand_.

Perhaps the magnitude of what had only just transpired, of feeling liberated and able to breathe for the first time in years, had simply bewildered him. Had broken a dam inside of him and through the cracks now poured the unsettling mix of old fury he had so long relied on and a fledgling sense of peace.

Perhaps it had merely made him realize just how lost he’d been. How she had unlocked a part of his soul he had never truly been able to smother. With her he had caught glimpses of what it was like to be Ben Solo again. It scared him as much as it sparked something so alien and unfamiliar it might actually be hope. He, Kylo Ren, Master of the Knights of Ren, Commander of the First Order and Apprentice of Supreme Leader Snoke, felt _hope_.

 _She had taken his hand_.

He couldn’t stop repeating that one sentence; that one glorious truth, over and over to himself. The fresh memory of her hand in his, not through their Force Bond but here, where he was, where she was too, served only to increase his newborn protective instinct. He would make sure Hux wouldn’t ever dare aim a weapon at her again. It had been torture to watch Snoke subject Rey to torment and interrogation. It had fully awakened that slumbering urge to protect her. To protect the only person that still called him Ben. That believed he was still there. In him.

He chanced a glance at Rey, almost desperately wanting to see her to reaffirm she was actually here and not an illusion concocted by his scarred heart. She stood a little behind him, looking away from both him and General Hux. A concerned frown creased her forehead and her hands were balled into fists pressed tightly against her hips.   

He wanted to reach out to her. Tell her things were going to change. That _everything_ was going to change. That together they could end this war. That vermin like Hux wouldn’t stand in their way. But it was difficult to radiate anything but anger however purposefully channeled through the haze that Kylo always put around him. That he in turn had tapped into and willingly received. It was like trying to squint against a harsh light and see the world for what it was through narrow slits between his fingers as his hand attempted to block the blinding effect it had on him. It was ironic how incandescent the Dark Side could be.

A slipping sound and the high-pitched squeak of leather boots against glass abruptly broke his train of thought. Ben whipped his attention back to the General before he slid down any further. He wasn’t done yet.

He increased the pressure so Hux stopped squirming like the insignificant insect he was. For the briefest of moments Ben couldn’t help but be entranced by the strange image of Hux almost comically sprawled among the stars. His pale face was contorted in an ugly and seething grimace as corpses and chunks of steel drifted lazily passed behind him.

And then he felt Rey’s mind like pinpricks on his consciousness. Each felt like a warning and a plea at the same time. The sensation cleared the haze of anger around him just enough to realize he was close to crushing the man splayed against the glass. So close to forcing the last bit of air to leave his lungs in a final, fatal, pathetic rasp.

Releasing his Force hold on him at once Ben dropped the General carelessly onto the floor, his gaze lingering on the destruction visible all around them and which he only fully took in now. The Supremacy was bleeding like a wounded animal: Most of the Battle Cruisers had been reduced to nothing more than dust: There was floating debris and wreckage everywhere: Explosions still ruptured the hull and spouted both material and people out into the unforgiving embrace of cold, lightless vacuum.

The General scrambled to his feet with all the dignity he could muster, his breathing heavy and coming out more like chokes. He was on the verge of spitting accusations and insults when his eyes shot to the Throne.

“S-Supreme.. Supreme Leader Snoke-” General Hux took a step back, visibly shaken. He had sounded far from grief-stricken however. Face taut but sorrowless he seemed to regard the fact that he had miscalculated this outcome as something akin to a personal affront and the consequently unexpected result as highly inconvenient.  

“Dead.” Ben filled in, his tone one of barely concealed indifference as he let his hatred for the man fuel him to make him appear more in control than he actually felt. It was vital he fooled Hux. He couldn’t allow him to treat him like a child with a temper.

General Hux made to move forward. So did Ben. All it took was one meaningful step in the man’s direction to stop him in his tracks. 

“What happened?” General Hux demanded in unmistakable reproach.

Bristled, Ben only just managed to repress the reflex to punish the man in front of him for his insolence and have him flat against the glass like a dead fly again.

Instead he crossed his arms over his chest and forced himself to answer tersely, “It would seem that Supreme Leader Snoke and his Pretorian Guard died in the crash with the Raddus.”

General Hux didn’t even bother to hide his suspicion. He almost looked amused at the obvious lie when his lip ever so slightly curled upwards in a sneer that was simultaneously threatening and mocking him.

Ben flexed his fingers, itching to force the man on his knees with one simple flick of his hand. “It would be in your interest not to doubt my word-”

“And the girl?” General Hux rudely cut him off, looking at Rey with unmasked disdain.

Ben ground his teeth. It was tempting to give in to his rage bubbling violently just under the surface. But he shouldn’t. That would mean Hux had won already.

“She is no longer our prisoner.” He stated, then drew on the Force to give his next words the weight they should carry, “She will be your Empress.”

Rey instantly stiffened, he could see her frozen posture in the periphery of his vision. More than that he could feel the Force around her inadvertently respond to how she felt about his use of that title. Wavering. Uneasy. _Panicked_?

General Hux glared in outrage but bit back a retort as Ben expanded his reach of the Force just enough to have it press against the periphery of his mind. It was as effective as having a sword dangling above an exposed neck. But it didn’t stop Hux’s eerily transparent blue eyes from acquiring an even icier hue.

“From now on Empress Rey and I will rule the First Order together.”

Hux wasn’t a stupid man. For once Ben appreciated that fact when he could tell by the narrowing of those cold eyes that the General had caught the implied with or _without_ you.

“What about the Resistance?”

Next to him Rey stirred. He could hear and feel her hold her breath. Her palpable and swelling anxiety for her friends making him instantly jealous of the hold they had on her. Even now. When she had made her choice. When she had stayed with him. When she must know he had no intention of going out of his way to spare them the fate they deserved. The order to kill them all hung readily on his lips.

And yet he didn’t say it.

Rey had wordlessly taken a step closer to him. He didn’t miss the meaning behind the gesture. If he would destroy those she still perceived to be her allies, if he gave in to Kylo’s burning lust for revenge, _his_ desire for it, he might lose her. Now that she had come for him.. Now that she was still here with him.. The thought of chasing her away, make her leave him, was disproportionately unbearable.  

“Let them go.” He said in a commanding voice and it felt like he was giving himself an order too. An order that was taking a considerable amount of self-control to obey.

General Hux, predictably, scoffed indignantly, “Let them go? You want me to allow the remnant of our defeated enemy to escape? We can’t afford to be lax now we have the chance to eradicate them once and for all-”

This time it was Ben’s turn to bluntly override him, and he made sure his tone carried due finality, “As you said, General, they’re already defeated. I won’t waste precious resources hunting down a ragged band of survivors, enemy or not. They’re no threat to us now. Not anymore. With no means to get off that deserted planet they have nowhere to go. Send a Cruiser to patrol in orbit if you like, but I think we have more important things to do than witness a handful of Resistance scum rotting away.”

Ben sensed Rey’s irritation at his wording but most of it was washed away by a wave of tentative, fragile relief. It wasn’t trust yet. It wasn’t gratitude. But it felt infinitely better than her previous anxiety. Of her doubting he wouldn’t do everything to keep her here. With _him_.

Hux was still fixing him with a deadly stare but he had grown impervious to those a long time ago. It seemed especially powerless now. Perhaps something in him had changed. Something jarred loose or fixed into place instead. All because of that one, incredible fact.

 _She had taken his hand_.

Clearly General Hux was appalled at the very idea of having the opportunity to quench the Resistance stolen from him. For a moment he just stood there, livid and practically trembling with repressed ire.

“Don’t you have a ship to evacuate?” Ben remarked off-handedly. He could sense the man’s feelings of hostility spike. He responded in kind and stabbed at Hux’s mind just enough to have him wince.

“Very well,” General Hux grudgingly conceded and left a deliberate pause before ending with a hissed, “ _Emperor_.”

He dipped his head in a not quite convincing sign of reverence and obedience, then marched out of the Throne Room.

The soft, shuffling sound of her lithe footsteps approaching made Ben tear his gaze away from where the hem of Hux’s long, military coat had just vanished around the corner.

“He obviously doesn’t trust me.”

There was that frown again. Why was she so worried when with their combined power there would be no one strong enough to stop them?

“Not just you.” He replied cynically, then added unconcernedly, “We don’t need his trust. Just his loyalty.”

“I’m not even sure we have that. And even if we do now, I doubt for much longer.”

Her skepticism, apart from being glaringly uncharacteristic, was riddled with the unease he had perceived in her before. When he had referred to her as Empress. Her brows furrowed even more and he felt an annoyingly familiar gap grow between them. Or maybe he had just become aware of it again and it had been always there. _Was_ still there. But wouldn’t be forever. It didn’t need to be there. He felt an instant aversion to this contradicting sense of being apart when they were finally together.

“Maybe not. But it’s a risk we’ll have to take. When we no longer need him.. When all of this,” He spread his arms wide to encompass the surrounding carnage suspended macabrely in space, “When we have made this war.. _redundant_..” He caught himself at the conflicted expression spreading on her face. He was prophesizing too much. Thinking too far ahead. He just felt so eager and hungry to create the future he had dared envision. Because of her. _With_ her.

“I’ll deal with him.” He settled on saying.

She didn’t reply, just cast her eyes down and nodded. Again he felt that hint of the chasm between them. Ben instinctively took a step towards her as if by literally decreasing the physical distance between them he could somehow bridge that mental and emotional gap too.

“Stay close to me.” He instructed her, his finger under her chin to lift it up so her eyes would meet his, hoping that his imploring look could express the fervent wish embedded in those words. Her initial silence was maddening. Severely testing his patience. Then something in her expression changed. That frown finally dissolved.

Elation surged through him and he released the breath he didn’t realize he was holding when Rey nodded again but so very differently this time. A spark rekindled the warmth of those brown orbs staring unwaveringly back at him; as if to say she had understood the full extent of what he had meant to say to her with that one, terse sentence.   

Without another word passing between them, without the _need_ for words, they made their way through the crippled ship. Steel groaned all around them. Stormtroopers gave them a wide berth as they frantically made for the escape pods and shuttles. Exposed circuitry sizzled, their white hot sparks competing with the equally erratic light strips overhead and running along the narrow corridors. 

The doors to the elevator slid shut behind them without a problem. Miraculously it was still working. Probably one of the few things aboard that did. Whether unconsciously or deliberately they stood in their respective places again: he behind her to the left and she in front of him to the right, her back turned against him.

For a fleeting moment he felt scared. Scared that all of this hadn’t been real. That it had been an illusion playing out in his mind alone. That they were on their way now to Snoke. That even if he killed his Master she could still reject him. She would refuse to take his hand.

Rey, probably sensing his childish, irrational reaction, threw him a quizzical look over her shoulder and the wall of fear he had slammed into instantly crumbled to dust. It was real. _She_ was real. He had truly freed himself from Snoke.

His gaze trailed down to her hands resting unclenched on either side of her. No stun cuffs. If his anxious mind still needed proof then that was it. Ben felt almost lightheaded with the relief spreading through him. Then he saw the glistening, crimson puddle gathering next to her feet. A droplet of blood splashed on the grid floor. Another. Another. The steady splatter adding a sinister rhythm to the monotonous and unvarying hum of the elevator.

“You’re hurt.”

In an instant he was by her side. But when he made to take hold of her arm so he could examine the wound she automatically drew back a little. A reflex the result of years of living on her own with no one to trust. Surviving by _mistrusting_. Not unlike himself.

Was there something else in her reaction? Was she afraid of him too?

The thought caused a sharp twang in his heart. He knew she saw the monster in him as clearly as he felt it poised. Always. Ready to come out and tear apart whatever was in his way. How could he make her see he would never attempt to wound her again? How could he trust himself that he wouldn’t?

“Just a scratch.” Rey mumbled sounding strangely self-conscious. She cast a furtive glance in his direction which, seeing he was standing so close to her, meant she had to tilt her head back a little. He hadn’t noticed before the way her eyelashes curved up. How could he not have noticed?  

“You?” she asked tentatively, blinking up at him. And then he understood her apparent nervousness. His proximity made her uncomfortable. He was making her feel like she had done when she had stood but an inch away from him. His prisoner claiming boldly he would turn. That she would help him. Maybe those words had effectively turned him into her prisoner instead. Cornered and feeling trapped by her standing so incredibly near he had retorted that when the moment came she would be the one to turn. Maybe both of them had had part of the truth right.   

“Not even a scratch.” He answered, the grin playing around his lips nothing to do with that fact but with the intensely pleasing realization just being physically close to her had this effect on her.

Rey arched one brow doubtfully. Obviously she wasn’t too unsettled to suspect he wasn’t entirely accurate. He did feel sore to his bones. He knew his body would be covered in bruises. He might even have broken a rib or two. But it was nothing. That kind of pain was nothing. How could it be? His soul being torn apart hurt so much more. _Stars_. His longing to be even closer to her as he was now hurt more..

“That just means the guards I fought were tougher than yours.” She gave him an almost playful stab back. An attempt to release the tension he felt coming from her like charged particles electrifying the very air between them. He felt strung too but released at the same time. Perhaps he just couldn’t quite believe his eyes yet. He greedily took her in then stopped himself and internally cursed at how easily he was distracted just by the sight of her. How was gaping at her going to fix her injury?

He closed one hand around her wrist and threatened to become lightheaded again when she didn’t try to pull it out of his grasp but allowed the Force surrounding her to flow freely towards him. She visibly relaxed and closed her eyes. Ready for whatever he was going to do to her. _Trusting_ him to treat her wound. 

“It won’t hurt.” He offered rather awkwardly but he wanted to give her some form of assurance. He wasn’t good at that. Never had been. And yet he wanted so desperately to show her she had made the right choice. She had been right. He had turned against his master. Not for whatever vision she had had of his future. Because of her. Just her.

He closed his eyes too and let his other hand hover above the graze on the side of her shoulder. First he gathered the Force near it so it had a higher concentration of life-filled energy, then gently guided it towards the broken and partly burned skin. He stopped the bleeding this way. Then, one fiber at a time, her flesh knitted together again and the heat radiating from what had been a severe abrasion ebbed away. But he didn’t stop yet. Unpracticed as he may be in Force healing Ben treasured the chance to relieve her of her pain.

When he finally withdrew, when her eyes flitted open again and found his, he allowed himself a moment longer to submerge in that dizzying feeling that was the aftermath of what had happened in the Throne Room. The decision she had made. The decision he had made. The choice they had _both_ made.

Because of it vision was turning into reality. Fantasy suddenly materializing into potential. There was something disorientating, hallucinatory even, about it; like waking up from a dream to discover that the lines between both worlds were blurring. Fading. Becoming one. It must be true for Rey too. He could see it reflected in her widened eyes. Feel it in the way the Force around them whirled, twisted and turned around its axis like a hurricane, pressing their presences together while they still retained their own forms in it.

They both hadn’t planned this. It had happened to them. But in all his life Ben had never felt more grateful for the capricious interference of the Force as he did now.  


	3. Chapter 3

                                                   Chapter 3                                                                            

The shuttle shuddered with yet another explosion that shook the havocked flight deck, making Rey slip forward on her seat. Unclenching her heels which had instinctively dug into the grid floor she shoved herself back into place, trying to ward off that sense of panic that was still effervescing close to the surface. At least she was going to leave this ship soon. They would have to. It was ablaze and tearing apart at the seams.

She turned her head to the left, just enough so she could observe Ben as he stood at the end of the opened ramp, a handful of Stormtroopers grouped around him. All of them stood out sharply against the myriad of flames melting steel and men alike. The fires raging on unchecked everywhere had made the air uncomfortably warm. Rey could feel pearls of sweat forming along her temples.

It wasn’t as warm as the deserts on Jakku though, she thought to herself with a bitter tasting irony.  She swore a lifetime under that glaring sun had practically made her heat resistant. Not that she wanted to put that to the test by sticking around on the Supremacy. She wanted to leave. Now. Why weren’t they leaving yet?

She fixed her stare on Ben, straining her ears to pick up what he was saying to the Stormtroopers all standing at attention: order and discipline a glaring contradiction against the backdrop of chaos erupting all around them. It was impossible to make anything out and so Rey swallowed down a rush of nerves and carefully expanded the awareness of her surroundings through the Force. The moment her mind touched upon Ben’s and the Stormtroopers she realized it was hard to get a grip on either of them. She could feel his mind manipulating and enforcing his orders on the Stormtroopers by warping their thoughts to follow his instructions blindly, any opposition to it instantly smothered.

Jaw instantly clenching in repulsion Rey withdrew and was of half a mind to intervene when a memory that came flooding back stopped her from going through with it. Her opposition to using the Force in this way, no matter how ardently she felt it, was hardly defensible in the light of her own behavior. After all, escaping on Starkiller base had required her to do the same. It didn’t matter that she had only just started to explore her abilities with the Force. It didn’t matter that she had not physically harmed that Stormtrooper guarding her. She had momentarily robbed him of his free will. And that really was no better than what Ben was doing right now.

Jedi hypocrisy. She could almost hear Master Skywalker say it. His disappointment and disillusion with his predecessors had been carved in every line of his ragged face. He was wrong. Her inexperience had been to blame. Not the Jedi and their teaching. How could it be when she had only just begun to study their legacy? A legacy that was now no more than a collection of frayed and stained books tucked haphazardly and not very respectfully in a drawer on the Falcon. Out of her reach. Very likely not going to survive like the ship it was on. Guilt didn’t quite cover the range and intensity of what she felt go through her at this thought.

A tingling in her shoulder disrupted her somber state, bringing her back to the here and now. She instinctively reached for it and rubbed the still reddish skin, thoughts automatically going back to Ben’s healing of her. It was hard to believe there had been a wound there. It had been unlike any other experience she had ever had, Force induced or not. He had _healed_ her. She didn’t even know that was possible. She knew so little. Near to nothing. She had so many questions about the Force. There hadn’t been enough time with Master Skywalker. Though she doubted he would answer all of her questions. She wasn’t sure about some of the things she wanted to know. If it was even the Jedi way to be this curious to actively pursue its boundaries instead of simply embracing its limitations in passive acceptance.

There was that tingling again. His lingering touch on her glowing skin. Too pensive to consciously direct her fingers Rey was barely aware of again lightly brushing across the spot where the wound had been as if to re-evoke that ghost of his Force enhanced energy repairing her broken skin.

She had never expected Ben to be capable of something like that. When he had told her he could teach her the ways of the Force she had assumed he had been referring to the Dark Side, corrupted as he was by it. Healing didn’t seem to fit that bill. Was it something he had learned as a Jedi?

_It shouldn’t hurt anymore._

Rey looked up to see Ben striding inside, the ramp just then closing behind him with a hiss. But he hadn’t said those words out loud…

“It doesn’t.” She stammered back, dropping her hand to rest in her lap and trying to maintain her composure now she felt so caught off guard. He had probably projected his voice inside her mind to prevent the pilots from listening in as they ran a hurried systems check in the cockpit.  And now her reflexive vocal reply was yet another indication of how inexperienced she really was in using the Force. More than that it had felt nothing short of intimate to hear his voice reverberating in her skull as if he was there with her, in her very thoughts.  

But she didn’t feel like raising her defenses and throwing him out. Maybe that was what surprised her the most. She didn’t experience the sense of intimacy as intrusive. It was a glaring contradiction with his interrogation of her at Starkiller base. He had tried to break into her mind then instead of inviting himself in as he had done now. It was still slightly uncomfortable, but a definite improvement now it didn’t carry that weight of oppression and the predatory clawing after information or secrets. It was also different from what she had felt him do to those Stormtroopers just now. Entirely different.

_Yes. It does feel different._

Rey couldn’t help but stir at the realization that he was aware enough of the contents of her thoughts to effectively enter the stream of it; effortlessly ride the same current.

_I wasn’t sure it would work. It’s not as pervasive as mind control through the Force. But I can feel your thoughts. Their edges._

She felt his thoughts tug at the periphery of her own as he said it and couldn’t resist to try and probe around for his.

_Why are we able to do this?_

He gave her a one-shoulder shrug in response as he continued to tread around in her mind, so much more carefully and respectfully than when he had forced entry into it the last time. Like her, he just wanted to know how this worked. Whatever _this_ was.

_Do you think our.. Our connection is still there? The one Snoke created?_ Rey hoped he couldn’t sense her heart skipping a beat as she formulated the question. As she considered that particular possibility.

_Maybe…_ His eyes glazed over a little and his focus on her mind slipped a bit as if remembering the conversations they had had through their bond was too distracting or taxing to fully maintain their telepathic link.

_This works differently though. We can establish this way of talking without having to be dependent on the Force to make it for us. And I suspect you can repel my voice, if you want, like breaking off any other channel of communication._

_Any other channel of communication?_ Rey repeated, raising a single brow to emphasize her amused incredulity. _It doesn’t compare to any other way I’ve ever communicated._

The hint of a strangely roguish smile played around his lips. _I know. Me neither._

_At least it’s not just me for who this is new.._

It was Ben’s turn to look at her slightly puzzled.

_I didn’t know you could use the Force to heal. That anyone could use it that way._ She explained, a part of her feeling embarrassed to admit it. For a moment he was silent and just gazed back into her eyes. She wasn’t sure if it was surprise, sympathy or a misplaced regret bordering on pity. She didn’t know which one of those she wanted it to be either.

Ben leaned back, head tilted and eyes straying rather aimlessly over the ceiling. He was gathering his thoughts. Deciding whether or not to open them to her. Or just partially. It was like static deliberately diffusing a frequency: disrupting the signal by taking a mental step back. 

_I never really mastered it._ A shadow crossed his face and the distance he had put between them returned for just a second before he went on _. Snoke didn’t prioritize healing abilities through the Force in his training. You should be strong enough to not get injured instead. Then there’s no need for healing._

What must be only a tiny fraction of the pressure Snoke had put on him bled through their connection. It made her inadvertently shiver. _I take it he considered healing someone else even less useful?_

_I don’t even think that possibility ever entered his mind._

She didn’t know what to say to that. There was a silence in which she could feel the shuttle take off and zoom out of the Supremacy. Everything was so overwhelming she hadn’t even thanked him yet for that act. _Stars_. She hadn’t thanked him for saving her from Snoke either. For choosing _her_. She had simply been, and probably still was, so completely thrown by the unexpected turn of events. It was not exactly how she had imagined. Still. She was grateful. Why was saying it more difficult than feeling it? She literally only had to allow him to access her thoughts when she said it.

Rey watched him a moment longer in silence. Watched him stare at the ceiling without really seeing it.

_Thank you._

Ben stirred and dropped his gaze to directly look at her again. He visibly hesitated then his voice came with that unrestrained eagerness – _intensity_ \- that made her heart skip a beat again and she knew what he was going to say before he had finished the sentence in her head.

_I could teach you._

There was no need for him to elaborate. Rey knew what he meant. Truth was ever since she had found Master Skywalker, ever since his lessons had been… Well, had been different from what she had expected. _Hoped_. Ever since having this, whatever it was exactly, awaken inside of her she knew she had needed a teacher. But she was here to bring Ben back to the Light, not to have him teach her about the Dark..

_I need some time to think about it._

He looked utterly crestfallen and his tone carried an unmistakable urgency and a hint of frustration now, _I’m not sure time is a currency we have a lot of at the moment._

_I know._ The accompanying look she gave him seemed to convince him of the truth of that assurance. His impatience, a restless sort of buzz she felt in the Force flowing between them, dissipated. She took advantage of it to change the topic, speaking out loud this time _._ “Where are we going?”

It was strange to have her voice actually come out again. There was a sense of loss almost coming from him like a ripple in a lake that he quickly quieted again when she instinctively reached out to him to understand why he felt that way. He swallowed before he was able to get his own voice out. “The Dominance. One of the two cruisers that aren’t damaged beyond repair.”

Rey felt a brief surge of pride on behalf of the Resistance and ignored the fact that he obviously felt irked by that. She didn’t need the Force to tell her this. The way he clenched his jaw and balled his fists was indication enough of that.

She had been on the verge of asking him where they would be going once they got aboard the cruiser when she recognized the tiny moving specks among the stars to be the handful of shuttles containing the Resistance. Forgetting where she was, _who_ she was with, she got to her feet and slowly walked up to stand behind the pilot; arrested and feeling immensely sad as she watched her friends fleeing towards the pale and seemingly lifeless planet. Hot on their heels was the other cruiser Ben had told her had come out of the battle relatively unscathed. As the rebel shuttles shrunk from specks to dots and from dots to nothing while the cruiser hovered threateningly over the planet, their potential _grave_ , the realization of just how vulnerable those lives she cared about were right now almost made her stagger backwards. Rey grabbed the headrest of the pilot’s seat to stay on her feet and at the same time heard Ben’s voice in her mind again.

_They made their choice when they decided to fight the First Order._

Rey threw a seething look over her shoulder. Ben was leaning back again in a stubborn sort of disinterest.

_Is it a choice to fight for peace?_

_No one made them do it._

_The tyranny of your First Order made them do it._

It was clear he didn’t appreciate the use of that pronoun but she forestalled the retort he no doubt had ready by pushing him out this time. He blinked a little stupidly, evidently not expecting her to do this. Then his expression became one of anger and hurt and she knew she had made her point clear. Now was not the time. They _would_ talk about this. About their opposing views. They had to if they wanted to create this ‘new order’ he had convinced her they could start. But right now she felt too emotionally drained to be up to it. She felt too confused to be able to judge whether or not she had sentenced her friends to death by making her choice. Like she hoped they still trust her she would have to trust them now. She had at least managed to prevent General Hux from blasting them out of space.   

She almost startled when Ben’s arm brushed her shoulder. She felt his eyes on her. Felt his plea for her to look at him. It was hard to resist.

_They have proven tenacious both at surviving against all odds and escaping our wrath._

A small laugh almost escaped her at his wording but she recognized it for the proposition of a truce that it was.

Probably encouraged by that promising sound that didn’t quite make it passed her lips his fingers tentatively grazed her knuckles. She didn’t withdraw her hand. His proximity was as agitating as it was soothing.

Bolstered by her reaction his fingers tugged ever so lightly on her fingertips with a gentleness she hadn’t thought possible coming from him. She wasn’t sure if this was his way of expressing sympathy at the sight they were witnessing, the choice she had made. Maybe it was Kylo placating her, winning her trust. Or maybe it was Ben’s genuine attempt to comfort.

At this point, with her heart so heavy, Rey didn’t much care which of the two it was. She drew comfort from the gesture. From his tangible support. And so she curled her fingers around his to anchor herself when the viewport reeled, the planet disappeared from view and instead the triangular shape of the cruiser the Dominance loomed above.

Rey was barely aware of disembarking the shuttle as it touched down on the crowded flight deck. She simply felt too exhausted to take it all in. She just wanted to sleep. Shut herself down. Not think about the enormity of what she had done and the consequences it could have. Just sleep. How often had she craved for that in her life? All she managed was to place one foot in front of the other and focus on Ben’s fingertips guiding her through the enormous ship. Through seemingly endless corridors that all looked like exact replicas of each other. And then they halted, he punched in a code, a door retracted into the wall and had already closed behind her again once she realized they had stepped inside a sparsely furnished and immaculate room.  

She vaguely heard Ben say something to her but understood his meaning without catching all the words when he motioned towards an arch leading into an adjoining room in which she thought she glimpsed the most welcome silhouette of a bed.

He told her he would be back but didn’t release her fingers until she had nodded at him. Next instant the door slid back into place and he was gone. Rey half walked half stumbled in the opposite direction, removing her boots on her way to the bed. She crawled to the center of it, cherishing the feel of some expensive and silky material she had never felt before in her life as she lay down. There was an almost imperceptible increase of gravity as the cruiser jumped to light speed. Stars stretched into streaks, then morphed into ribbons of light moving like snakes across the window.

Rey demonstratively turned on her other side, back to the evidence of how she had now truly left her friends far behind. That undeniable fact tightened her throat and had tears threatening to escape from under her eyelashes.

She fumbled at her belt, reaching behind it to free the beacon from where it had pressed against her hipbone. It pulsated a deep, reassuring blue. Folding her hand around it and holding it close to her chest, Rey pressed her eyes tightly shut, rolled herself up like a ball and prayed sleep would drag her away from herself.


	4. Chapter 4

Chapter 4

He entered the dim room hours after bringing Rey there, not bothering to run his hand over a light sensor. All these officers’ rooms had the same design and he had spent enough years living in one to know his way even in semi darkness. Especially this officer’s room. After the Supremacy, the Dominance was probably the Star Cruiser he spent most of his time on. Ben didn’t believe in luck but it had been fortunate that it also happened to be a Cruiser that had sustained relatively little damage.

Mind and body equally sluggish and overstrained he failed in stifling a yawn as he ducked under the arch and sat down on the edge of the bed. Only when he had pulled off his gloves and carelessly dropped them on the bed did he fully register he was not alone. There was a muffled groan and he felt the matrass beneath him move slightly.

Ben jumped to his feet, swiveled around and staggered back in such haste he collided none too gently against the wall behind him. Inadvertently holding his breath for every instinct in him urged him not to make a sound, he willed his eyes to adjust to the scarce light until he could make out the huddled and frail form curled up like a ball on his bed. _Rey_.  

For a moment he simply stared at the unusual sight before him. He was so used to being alone that even though he had brought her here without really thinking logically –or _practically_ \- about it, he only now realized he hadn’t shared a room with anyone for a very long time. Not since the Temple-

The familiar surge of volatile emotions associated with that particular memory jarred him into motion again. One hand against the wall he followed it to the archway and back into the main room of his living quarters. The dull thuds of his boots sounded deafening to him, a sound that was bound to wake her up if the ruffle of his clothes wouldn’t. _Stars_. If him sitting down on the bed she was sleeping in without much regard for that fact hadn’t woken her up already that was.

Annoyed by his own disproportionate and sudden nervousness Ben slowly turned around, careful not to make even more sounds. He internally scorned himself for his exaggerated alertness, it evidently revealed just how much he was out of his element. Living together in the same, limited set of small rooms. Eating and sleeping, washing, _breathing_ : everything set within the cramped space of his quarters.

And yet, peering back into the adjoining room, seeing her lie so still, only her shoulders rising and falling now and then, instantly squelched the obvious solution. He didn’t want to have to take another room. It would be inconvenient. Besides, it was too dangerous to be separated more than they could avoid. The First Order was not an organization in which one felt especially safe after all. And with Supreme Leader Snoke gone the risk of betrayal in the void of power he had left behind had considerably increased.   

With that depressing and infuriating thought for company Ben sank down on the sofa and kicked off his boots. The sensation of feeling overwhelmed with everything that had happened may have gradually been ebbing away it was hard to not have it resurge now. Mostly, though, he just felt depleted. He was even more tired than he usually felt already lately. Ben placed his elbows on his knees, resting his forehead against the palms of his hands and letting out a deep sigh of exhaustion.

It had taken nearly all of his remaining strength to meet with the remaining leadership of the First Order. They desperately needed to discuss how they were going to proceed now they had been dealt such a blow and everything seemed in temporary but not less impactful disarray because of it.

The sheer incompetence of the people he had to work with was a source of almost constant frustration. He had lost his patience more than once as a result. There was probably maintenance crew swarming all over the bridge right now fixing those control stations.

The fact that his goal had now truly and irretrievably shifted away from that of the First Order had strangely fueled his rage. It accounted for part of the frustration he had felt with still being here. Not that he hadn’t vigilantly guarded that particular bit of information from leaking through his carefully controlled expressions and words. Only from the inside, as the leader of the First order could he bring about a New Order. Ben wasn’t as naive to believe that his position would protect him. Protect _them_. A traitor was a traitor regardless of rank. And he had personally enforced the way the First Order dealt with traitors. The irony of the current situation, therefore, wasn’t lost on him.

It had been more difficult to continue playing the role of Kylo Ren than he had expected. It had taken all of his self-control even though it was a mask he had hidden behind for so long that part of him had become Kylo. That part of him entangled by the Dark Side. And it did not let go of him. Not without a fight. Perhaps never would.

And yet he still wanted Rey to try. If only to try. _Then maybe_..

But was he really willing to part with the power available to him by using the dark side? By tapping into his anger and fears he had become stronger than he could have ever been as a Jedi. By releasing instead of stemming passion he had been able to enhance his connection to the Force. His ability to manipulate it. Bend it to his will.

Not that Snoke had approved of all the emotions he had attempted to wield as a weapon. _Compassion_. An echo of the now dead Supreme Leader’s raspy voice grated against his ears and Ben hunched his shoulders protectively. Compassion he had felt for Rey. It should not have been there. It had slipped in through the cracks of his soul that just couldn’t resist that pull back to the Light. It was why he had attempted to crush it, that treacherous sliver of hope, by killing his fa-

He winced and immediately brought a hand to press against his bottom lip. Even in the darkened room he could see blood glistening on his fingertips. He shouldn’t have let his thoughts go there. To that raw place somewhere in his chest, almost robbing him of his breath now and growing even more painful since he had diverted from his course. Since he had started down a different road which he thought he could see clearly and at the same time was nothing more than a hazily shimmering horizon of which it was impossible to see beyond or discern anything on that wavering, distorted line. It was the same raw place where he felt his mother’s presence lingering even though she was dead too. It almost didn’t matter it wasn’t by his hand. _Did it_?

Ben forced his thoughts back to the present. There were enough problems he had to deal with to indulgence in retrospection. Besides, that raw place filled him with such dread he wasn’t sure he would ever have the strength –the courage- to face it.

At least those Stormtroopers had not failed him. They had, dutiful and obedient as ever though the Force compelled order must have helped too, immediately reported back to him after coming over from the Supremacy. Their somewhat gruesome task had been completed. And more important that that, it hadn’t attracted any unwanted attention.

The moment they had delivered their cargo and sealed it, Ben had wiped their memories. They had done well but it was too much of a risk to have them remember their orders. Especially _who_ had given them. He wished he could have kept Hux from entering the Throne Room but it was too late to change that now. Moreover, the General was not as easy a prey as those Stormtroopers had been and to have a memory removed from his mind would have added not decreased risk. 

Still. He could breathe a little more freely now. The Praetorian Guard had been incinerated, their ashes indistinguishable from that clinging to twisted steel and settling on molten TIE-fighters. He hadn’t wanted to leave a trace of what had really happened. And he couldn’t afford to rely on the ship being torn apart and have the evidence be destroyed with it. Snoke’s body had been a different matter. It would only raise suspicion if that disappeared too. And so he had had the Stormtroopers seal it in the nondescript stasis pod now stored in a secured cargo bay aboard the Dominance.

Ben knew he wouldn’t be at ease until they had entombed the Supreme Leader on Moraband. To have that condemning piece of evidence out of sight forever. It was only a few days until the next Blood Moon would rise and they could perform the necessary rituals. Not that he would perform them out of respect. Not even out of personal belief. Not anymore. But he didn’t want to attract attention and act suspiciously by neglecting to perform this duty. Hux might not care about ancient Sith rituals, the Knights of Ren most definitely did.. 

Those arrangements weren’t the only things he had started organizing though. There would have to be a quite different ceremony after the entombment. Judging by Rey’s initial  reaction of unease at the use of the title of Empress, Ben figured he would have to think of a way to phrase that so she wouldn’t respond in her naturally defiant way. His lips curved in a half smile of their own accord as he meticulously recalled every instance of her fiery disposition. He suspected it was what he liked about her. _That inextinguishable fire burning inside of her_. _That sheer and fervent will to survive_..  

Acting on impulse Ben cautiously stretched out through the Force to encompass the adjoining room. He didn’t want to risk waking her but at the same time he felt an inexplicable urge to ascertain she was there without having to actually take a look. There was no need to investigate why he should want to watch her sleep again. Why he should want to watch _anyone_ sleep for that matter. That didn’t make any sense. He only did this to affirm her presence close by.

He instantly stumbled upon her energy signature but it felt like her mind was too vivid and sharp for her to be asleep. Ben quickly withdrew, knowing she had noticed him and it might have been his fault that had caused her to wake up.

Straining his ears for sounds of movement he soon heard the ruffle of fabric, her body sliding off the edge of the bed and then he could only just make out her shadowy shape appearing in the archway. She walked over to him on bare feet, nothing in her posture indicating surprise at finding him in the room next to hers. Ben stirred a little guiltily at the confirmation of his suspicion that he had very likely woken her. _Stars_. If the nudge of the Force he had sent her way hadn’t done it the gloves he had left on the bed would’ve clued her in. It was confusing to want to know if they had caused her to wonder why they were there and yet not want her to mention it at all, _ever_ , at the same time.

_Such a trivial thing as gloves, for stars’ sake_!

Determined to not betray even a hint of his thoughts Ben pretended he wasn’t concerned about her presence with him in semi-darkness. As it really _shouldn’t_. She didn’t say anything but simply perched on the other side of the sofa, her contours soft and smooth against the harsher trail of stars streaming passed on the other side of the rectangular and deeply recessed window.

For a moment longer Rey stared at her hands in her lap, fingers plucking absentmindedly at the edges of the bindings wrapped around her arms. Then she suddenly stilled her fidgeting as if in self-admonishment and practically blurted out in a small, self-conscious voice, “Is sleep something you can be bad at?” She threw him a furtive glance then quickly answered her own question before he could, “I feel I have been lying there awake much longer than asleep.”

Ben felt an emotion briefly course through him which Snoke would most definitely not have tolerated. An emotion uncomfortably close to endearment. Then he remembered. An island jutting out like an ancient sea creature’s fang from a vast ocean.

“Why don’t you go to that island of yours?” He offered, hoping he had sounded desirous only of helping, not of humiliating. He wasn’t sure he had succeeded when she stiffened as if in apprehension. He could see the island take shape in her mind against her will. Sense its familiar presence. But there was something different. It felt more solid somehow. Not like the fantasy it had been to lull her into sleep. For her consciousness to wander around until drowsiness set in. It felt so very different.

His eyes widened as he truth hit him. It felt like a _memory_.

“You found him on the island.” He stated, knowing he was right. “You were there when.. When we connected through the Force.”

At first he sensed a strong reluctance to admit it but it was gradually replaced by a staggering willingness to share. By a _need_ to tell him even.

She nodded and stared ahead of her a little dazed. “Yes. I’ve visited that island in my dreams so many times.. And I never realized that place was real. That such a tiny, green rock was the home of the first Jedi Temple.”

Ben bristled a little at her tone of misplaced reverence but refrained from commenting. She could probably feel his disagreement as an angry spike in the Force regardless of whether he spoke it out loud or not.  

This information was dangerous though. It would put _her_ in danger. If the Knights of Ren found out.. If Hux did.. And they would if she didn’t guard her thoughts better.

He balled his fist and rested his chin on it, feverishly repressing a wave of worry and thinking hard. They had five days to the entombment ritual on Moraband. Five days in which he would have to teach her to turn her mind into an impenetrable fortress. He knew she could do it. Probably. She had ousted him from her mind on Starkiller base after all.

_Five days_ … It wasn’t a whole lot of time to prepare. If he told her this now, though, she would never be able to sleep. And she needed to be as rested as possible for his training to be useful. _He_ needed rest before he even attempted it.   

“You could try a different island this time? One that really is imaginary?” Ben suggested with feigned confidence in his ability to be helpful, he had always felt particularly awkward and inept at that. His heart unclenched a little as Rey let out a stifled sort of snort in response. Instead of answering him seriously, though, she simply curled up on the sofa beside him.   

“What’s wrong with the bed?” Ben couldn’t stop himself from asking, perhaps more than wanting to know masking the fact that he had not expected her to stay here with him.

“Too soft.” She explained resolutely.

He huffed, not in derision but amusement at the reason.

“And too big too. I’m not used to either.” She added honestly after a pause, tugging her legs under her body even more while her arms embraced her slender form and she closed her eyes, the latter filling him with such sudden gratitude it forced him to swallow hard. She actually felt safe enough with him, her enemy not too long ago, to close her eyes. He had never realized how so small a thing could feel so significant.  

“Alright. You can stay here. _This time_.” He let her know in a low tone which, far form carrying the warning suggested by those last words, made it necessary for him to call on very ounce of self-control he possessed to repress a satisfied grin.

“How generous..” Rey mumbled back, her voice sounding muffled and drowsy.

A real, full-fledged smile curved his lips despite his effort now. Ben leaned back, resting his head against the sofa as he stretched out one leg and bent the other. One hand was on either side of him, his left near enough her huddled form if he but stretched his fingers he would touch her leg. He couldn’t remember not being alone when he closed his eyes to sleep. He had repressed how lonely those moments were. Maybe that was why it was such a strange comfort to have her slowly but surely succumb to sleep next to him.

Despite his bone-deep fatigue, Ben focused on her soft, slow breathing, fighting off sleep just a bit longer so he could listen as long as he could to its calming, hypnotizing rhythm. 


	5. Chapter 5

Chapter 5

A harsh chirp, sounding like it belonged to some mechanical bird, abruptly invaded her ears. Rey cringed at the sound as it repeated itself. Slowly rousing she squinted through her eyelashes. Her vision was instantly flooded by the glare of artificial light which almost made her squeeze her eyes tight shut again. Propping herself up on an elbow she cast a confused look around and it took her sluggish mind a moment longer to remember where she was.

The officer’s quarters aboard the Dominance slowly came into focus when yet another string of incessant and seemingly disembodied chirps penetrated her ears. Sitting up straight, Rey stretched her arms above her head, hands clasped together as her spine elongated with a pleasant _pop_. She couldn’t remember the last time she had slept this soundly. Or if she ever even had. No dreams. Not a single one. How long had it been since her sleep had been uninterrupted and had felt this wholesome?

Rey cast a furtive glance at the spot next to her on the sofa where Ben had been. His energy lingered there, like a ghost sentinel making her feel safe enough to sleep the way, and as long as, she had. Like the rest of the handful of furniture present, the sofa was smooth, polished, impeccably clean and of the same sharp-angled, functional geometric design as everything else. It almost made her feel like an intrusion. Like it hadn’t been designed for a living human being such as herself. It couldn’t be more different from the almost organic feel of the Falcon.

She stirred at the guilty pang in her chest as she thought of Chewie flying the ship on his own through endless space, probably hindered more than assisted by the dozen porgs nestling in it. At least he wasn’t entirely alone. He could use the company of those wing-flapping, eyes-bulging and squawking seabirds seeing how often the Falcon spent its time adrift because of yet another thing that broke. Rey had the irrational idea that the old freighter was only staying together in one piece because of Han’s spirit that willed it to fly.

_Han_..

Rey couldn’t repress a shudder. He should’ve been there. In the pilot’s seat next to Chewie. She wasn’t sure if he would have put up with the feathered, noisy stowaways from Ahch-To but she was certain he would’ve done a better job at convincing Master Skywalker to join the Resistance. To help them.

_Them_.

_Not her_.

It was strange how that one word no longer felt it included her. And yet she didn’t feel as sorrowful about that as she should. After all, she was not completely alone here, amidst her, _their_ , enemy. Rey pushed herself off the sofa in an attempt to shake that particularly disquieting sensation. Her bare feet on the cool surface of the glossy, even slippery, floor, instantly chased away any remaining drowsiness.

The chirping stubbornly continued but she had no idea where it was coming from. Or what it meant. Her eyes found an archway in perfect symmetrical opposition to the one leading to the bedroom. Only now did she register the intermittent humming of the sonic shower coming from beyond it. The reddish glow was dimmed by ground glass and, with her heart skipping an incriminating beat, she caught a glimpse of Ben’s tall, muscular frame on the other side. Her eyes stuck on his blurred contour Rey vividly recalled taut skin and a toned chest and she was excessively glad he couldn’t see her cheeks flushing. Then the thoughts that had caused it were interrupted by yet another chirp. She could swear it sounded louder this time. _Angrier_.

Rey looked around and finally spotted the outlines of the door leading back to the corridor. Right next to it a green light was flashing wistfully, almost reproachfully even. She walked over, hand hovering for a few seconds in front of the blinking light. Was opening the door such a wise idea? She had no idea what awaited her on the other side..

A prolonged, practically wailing chirp prompted her to hurriedly press the button below the light, if only to make that ear-grating sound finally stop.

The door obediently slid into its recess in the wall. Without preamble a droid zoomed passed her, muttering grumpily as it went inside. It was also too occupied with inspecting the room with two practiced, lamp-like eyes for any deviations to have fully noticed Rey yet. She stood a little forlorn next to the doorframe, simply watching the droid as it hovered through the room, rearranging some items on a cabinet and returning to its rightful place a very uncomfortable looking, metal stool that had apparently strayed too far from the only table present. 

“Ah! Mistress Rey?” the droid inquired the moment his scrutinizing gaze had fallen on her and had decided the anomaly among the furniture did not have to be removed or set straight. The droid had evidently been informed of her presence.

“Yes.” Rey answered him, feeling slightly taken aback by how it had addressed her. The droid zoomed closer, stopping only when its face was inches from her own. It had a gridded slit for a mouth, a spiraled antenna stuck to either side of its oval head for ears and those round, protruding, brightly lit orbs for eyes.

“Um.. What’s your name?” She asked in return, not wanting to be rude.

The droid cocked his head, eyes zooming in and out so its square pupils enlarged and shrank a couple of times, all a clear indication she had either asked a very silly –possibly insulting- question or no one had actually asked him this before.

Eventually its voice came out all tinny and metallic, “I was designated AZI-2115856548164-”

“Okay, thanks, I think I get the picture.” Rey quickly assured him, breaking off what had threatened to become an endless row of numbers. “Azi, for short, then.”

The droid blinked at this announcement, this time tilting his head the other way as if busy processing that unusual suggestion.

The thudding footfall of heavy boots announced Ben appearing through the arch as he pulled a fresh, black tunic over his head. The hum of the sonic shower had ceased and the reddish glow had been replaced by a pale, white one. 

“I wondered who you were talking to.” Ben remarked in what she had come to realize was his adopted tone of aloof and stern indifference. Rey nevertheless caught the hint of a teasing glint in his dark eyes as he walked over. It had two very different effects on her. The first was one of envy as she wished for a similarly intangible mask to hide her features, each of which so prone to betraying her emotions in an instant to anyone. The second, though perhaps she really had felt this one first, was a fluttering in her chest this particular glint in his eyes had evoked there before.  

Rey forced herself to look away and pretend she hadn’t been distracted by the hard lines carved around the muscles just above his hipbones before they disappeared under the padded material he now tugged under his belt.

“I doubt anyone but a droid would talk to me here.” she said flatly, glad that at least her voice sounded more or less unconcerned with the increasingly unsettling effect he was having on her.   

“I agree.” Ben replied dryly, triumphantly almost, before realizing the trap around the same time she did. _He_ was talking to her too after all.

He halted beside her, his frown again gainsaid by that same eager glint though Rey was sure she wouldn’t have noticed it if she hadn’t studied his face so intently during the moments their Force Bond had connected them.

“Did you just call me a droid?” Ben probed, his voice deeper somehow.

Rey pressed her lips tightly together, only just managing to keep her amusement from showing. Azi, meanwhile, looked from one to the other, accompanied by that mechanic whirring sound of his neck joints, and then let out what had to be the droid equivalent of a laugh. Both Ben and herself threw him a surprised look. _So not just BB-8 had a sense of humor_.

Still chuckling with machine-like hiccups, Azi reached with both arms behind him, wrists turning 180 degrees so the three, knobbly digits on each hand could grasp whatever he had been carrying around in a compartment on his back. Next instant he held out a stack of neatly pressed clothes to her.

“For me?” she inquired incredulously.

“Master Kylo ordered them to be synthesized yesterday.”

Rey accepted them a little awkwardly while the droid floated towards a built-in wardrobe, took out even more clothing and began to put them in drawers. “Oh. Um. Thanks, Azi.”

“Azi?” Ben repeated, brows furrowing.

“Mistress Rey insisted on giving me a name. She is the most peculiar humanoid I have ever served.” the droid answered for her, whizzing through the room for one final inspection before disappearing the way it had come now its task was apparently done.   

“Tell me about it.” came Ben’s stoic response the moment the door had slid back into place. He shot her an indecipherable look as he said it, then walked passed her to retrieve his gloves from the bed.

“You don’t exactly serve me.” Rey called after him, not even sure why she felt bristled by the accusation that wasn’t even really there. 

“I don’t?” Ben arched a brow, one glove grasped in one hand while he pulled its twin on the other.

Rey ground her teeth as that flutter returned; stronger this time.

“Judging by those wrinkles on your forehead I guess you find me ungrateful for my regained freedom.” he sounded irritated.

“You’re the only one who can set yourself free.” her serious, grave tone made him lock eyes with her, hands with one only halfway into the second glove frozen in midair. Rey could see an annoyed sort of regret gather in his eyes, no doubt he was cursing himself for providing her with the opportunity to turn the conversation effectively against him. That was probably why there was anger radiating off of him too. It still baffled her how close to his surface it resided, accumulating as fast as a sand storm.

“You seem to be under the false impression that I’m imprisoned.”

“You are. A part of you is.”

“Look around you, Rey. There are no bars, no guards, no cuffs. I can go anywhere I want.”

“If that’s true then why are we here?” she countered, refusing to back down. She knew he had caught the implied question. _Why hadn’t he come with her to join the Resistance instead?_

He pointedly ignored her, focusing instead on pulling on that last glove. He was still needlessly fiddling with it when she took a step closer. “Why are we staying when we could leave? Find a way to create this new order away from all this. Together.”

She took another step closer when he remained silent and looked up at him, searching for any sign that he had heard her; that he was willing to at least consider what she had proposed.

“Ben?” the sound of his name made him go all rigid, she thought she detected a flicker of hesitation in his eyes as they flitted up seemingly against his will to find hers again. Rey held her breath. _Hoping_.  

Then the moment was gone. The door closed again with a bang. He balled his fists. Determined to not give in. To even see it as an option.

“We need the position of power that the First Order provides us with.” Ben bit out, evoking that tinge of deep disappointment she had felt when his gaze had fixated on that empty Throne.

“There must be another way-”

“There is no other way.” he overrode her attempt to change his mind, sounding unmistakably angry now. But that wasn’t all Rey sensed in the restlessness of the Force surrounding him. There was something else mingling with his rage. A helplessness she couldn’t explain.

_A fear of his own anger?_

Despite herself, despite knowing she should resist this pull, Rey took yet another step closer, their bodies were but a breath apart now. The tendrils of darkness wrapped around his soul slithered to envelop her too. There was something undeniably enticing about their promise of untamed strength. Their alluring potential to provide answers. It still drew her in like that dark well on Ahch-To. But it was hard to tell whether it was his darkness that resonated with every increasingly louder heartbeat, or her own..    

Ben cowered as he seemed to sense what she was doing. How the dark in him greedily expanded towards her. How she didn’t recoil. He took a step back as if frightened, his expression haunted and pained.  Before she could say anything, before she could stop him, he hurriedly moved away. Ben brushed passed her, broad shoulder colliding with hers and bluntly stating as he stomped off, “I’ll wait outside.”

“Ben.. Wait-”

But he didn’t hear her. He had already swept out of the room, leaving Rey rooted to the spot, tightly clutching her new clothes to her chest in a far from comforting embrace.

(…)

His lightsaber burst into life as soon as the door had hissed closed behind him. Ben paced in front of it like some wild, restless animal; the erratic crackling of his weapon adding a sound to the fury boiling inside. He felt it crawl under his skin. Like an invasion of repulsive insects that he wanted to oust. A surplus of energy that needed a way out. A storm of emotions threatening to drown him if he didn’t send it crushing into the wall he passed. One way. Stop. Turn. Back the other way. Like he was caught in a cage.   

His hand clenched even tighter around the handle, making the leather of his glove creak because of it. It was impossible to contain it. All of it. And so Ben allowed himself to release some of his anger; to unleash it through his saber as he flicked it almost casually across the wall. One way. Stop. Turn. Back the other way. His saber dragged through the ship, effortlessly ripping it open. Ben lowered it, letting the ragged tip scratch the ground, leaving red-hot gouges in his wake.  

He didn’t know how long he had continued with this. All he knew, all he _felt_ , was the energy it cost him to remain in control of himself. To not wholly give in to slashing around him in blind, all-consuming hate. To stop himself from scarring the corridor with his weapon no matter how much it relished this outlet. No matter how a part of _him_ relished it.   

And so he stopped pacing and just stood there, shoulders hunched and panting slightly. Ben closed his eyes, simultaneously taking a  deep breath. That combination worked. It made him capable of repressing another surge of anger from rising up. And the next. The waves were less high and less frequent now. He desperately maintained his focus on his breathing; on his hand around the handle where as always he could feel the scorching heat emanating from the cross-guard close to his knuckles; on his feet planted firmly beneath him, _grounding_ him.

For some reason he couldn’t explain to himself Rey’s island floated to the surface of his thoughts. Well. Not _her_ island of course. And with it the patter of rain. The crackling and warmth of a fire. The sight of her small form wrapped in a blanket.

The pressing need to protect, to help her protect herself, returned in full force. It was like he could think clearly again. He couldn’t allow his temper to get the best of him. Not if that made him forgetful of the importance of teaching Rey to hide her thoughts. To guard her mind and the treasure trove it was to anyone wishing to do her harm.

With this last thought Ben finally found the strength to switch off his lightsaber. The silence that followed felt like a relief. He straightened. A weight at least temporarily lifted from his shoulders. He honestly wasn’t sure how much longer he had stood there, unmoving, staring dazedly at the damaged wall, before he heard her stepping outside and he stirred again.

“This way.” was all he said, avoiding to look at her. He knew she must be apprehensively taking in the scene of destruction, minor as it was compared to his usual outbursts, but he couldn’t bear to see that disappointment reflected in her eyes again.

He didn’t look back over his shoulder once during the long walk to their mid-deck destination. It was the location of the only thing that was unique to the Dominance. His design. His tribute. His pride. Ben’s chest swelled a little, as it always did, when he preceded her in a windowless room almost exactly at the heart of the Cruiser.

Rey behind him gasped, her footsteps that had been like fainter echoes of his own stopping abruptly. Ben didn’t halt but walked on, his proximity making the crooked sphere with its pockmarked but perfect surface open. Jets of steam escaped from the mechanism forcing the two identical halves apart.

Ben stepped inside, only now realizing he was still clutching the hilt of his lightsaber as if his life depended on it. He hooked it on his belt and waited for Rey to follow his lead. She did. Tentatively. But still. She did follow him. The moment she had the sphere closed again, like two claws gripping into each other to become one once more.

The interior was practically seamless and apart from a control panel or two blissfully empty. It calmed him down another notch. Most of his anger that had flared up subsiding to no more than its usual peripheral presence.

“Why are we here?” her question, somewhat muted even though it bounced of the enveloping walls, made him  finally turn his attention to her. Expression puzzled Rey traced a non-existent pattern across the smooth, pristine white surface as she explored her new environment, small and closed off as it was. The clothes he had ordered for her were a perfect fit. A fact that, apparently, was enough to rob him of the power to speak a moment longer.

Occupied as she was in investigating her surroundings with the enviable inquisitiveness of a child, Ben allowed himself to take in every detail of her new outfit. As expected the droid had interpreted his instructions extremely well. Her leggings were practically the same but a darker shade, as were her knee-length boots. Her tunic was a little longer and tailored to follow the lines of her body better. It was made of the same padded fabric he wore but thinner and ash-colored. Her upper body was partly covered with a finely made chest guard that was kept fixed in place with leather straps across her back while a belt that was similar in style was strapped around her hips, crossing each other at the center, silver lightsaber attached to it, dangling a little with every step she took around this compact, domed world. Lastly, her slender arms were covered from her wrists to half way up her upper arm, the folds in the gray fabric recalling the wraps she had always seem to have worn.

“Ben?”

Her voice made him rip his lingering gaze from the sliver of skin visible above those sleeves, and this time he didn’t experience that familiar, automatic wince at the sound of his name.

_Why didn’t he?_

“What even is this?” Rey nudged her chin towards the ceiling, curious more than impatient.

“It’s a meditation chamber.” Ben explained, sense of pride returning, “It’s made out of an nearly impenetrable alloy so that sound stays out. I find it’s isolation helps me to.. To clear my mind. And to train myself to strengthen my mental defenses.”

She silently nodded, clearly having picked up on his intentions just now. “You want me to do the same? To strengthen my mental defenses?”

“Yes.”

“You’ll teach me?”

“If you let me.”

“Is there a reason I should?” she sounded downright suspicious now.

He swallowed, then opted to simply tell the outright truth, “In five days there will be a burial ritual for Snoke performed on Moraband. Apart from us and some high-ranking officers, the Knights of Ren will be there too. They were mostly trained by Snoke himself, just like me. I only finished it when he couldn’t be bothered with them anymore. They’re strong. They’ve grown especially apt at invading minds. It is their greatest weapon..”

Rey grew more tense with every word he added. But she didn’t protest. She was quiet for a moment, staring back at him, thoughts whirling at first at the daunting prospect then settling again in a calmer flow.

“Okay.”

Relieved, Ben sat down and motioned for her to do the same. She did. They sat across from each other with their legs crossed, him with his hands around his ankles, she intertwining her fingers and resting her hands palm up in her lap. She reminded him of his uncle a little too much this way. He buried that memory deep inside. Like he had buried all of them. He was less scared of them here though. In this safe haven. His self-built memorial for his grandfather.

“You don’t have to worry about letting your guard down. No one can reach you here.” he told her when her anticipation came rolling towards him in tense, electrified waves. Truth was, it was the only place he _wasn’t_ afraid of letting his guard down. When he was alone, that was.

“ _You_ can.” came her smart reply.

“I can reach you across the galaxy.” he reminded her with no little amount of smug satisfaction.

The corner of her mouth quirked for the briefest of moments. _Was that a smile_?

“True.” she admitted, “But we’re not here to keep you out of my head. We’re here so you can teach me how to keep those Knights out.”

“Those _other_ Knights.” he corrected her, the hint of a grin breaking through on his own face now. He felt little loyalty left to the band of former-Jedi Padawans he had taken with him. They had changed. All of them had. Himself included. Snoke had kept them busy and separated with missions that had sent them lightyears in the opposite direction of one another. And now, scattered as they were, he would have to reassert his position as their Master again. Ben only hoped he himself was up to that particularly dangerous challenge.

Rey frowned a little at the truth of that remark, then decided to save commenting on it for a later time and commanded impatiently, “Just tell me what to do.”

The experience of teaching her was as new to him as it was to her. Ben instructed her with as little explanation as possible, he would not know what words to use in any case, and instead showed her how to raise a mental wall around her thoughts. For him it had become second nature, for her it was a struggle to keep that wall from crumbling, from letting him enter through the cracks.

At first he she was too unprepared to keep him from accessing her memories and he strolled through them at leisure: Rey as a little girl trudging through the sand, squinting against the glaring sun; vacuumed food rations banged on a rusty counter that made the whole booth shake; a flower tenderly watered even though he could feel how dry her own throat was; a ship taking off without her as she screamed after it but even with her lungs burning from the exhaustion she wouldn’t stop; an old, wrinkled lady rubbing something clean with a dirty cloth and the realization she was looking at an older version of herself; Rey sprawled on her back on top of the AT-AT she called home, staring at the stars with such longing that it made her cry-

_Stop.._

Her voice entered his mind unbidden, pushing him away from her memories. Ben gathered the Force around him and fought his way back in.

Hunger that gnawed relentlessly at her stomach, a perpetual hollow, maddening feeling; the scratching sound grating her ears as she carved another mark next to the hundreds etched into the AT-AT’s inner flank; the Falcon barely making it off the ground then speeding through the carcass of a downed star destroyer, the freighter now attuned to her every fiber-

_Stop._

Her voice sounded stronger now. He felt Rey’s energy pulsating as she drew on the Force to steel her defenses. It became increasingly harder to break back into her mind. He only managed it for seconds at a time, seeing only flashes of things he had already seen. It was starting to become draining. For both of them. Ben could feel the same tiredness in his own body. How long had they been at this? Minutes? Hours-

His distraction was all Rey had needed to drive him completely from her mind. She had put up an invisible but not less solid barrier between them that repelled his next attack. And the next. Then the current turned in his direction.

Ben felt her snatch at his own memories, causing a recent one to resurface before he could stop it. An image filled his mind and hers. An image of himself waking up before Rey and turning back just before he had reached the shower. He saw himself leaning against the archway and-

“You watched me sleep?” Rey exclaimed non-plussed, her attack relenting enough for him to instantly shut her out of his mind.

Ben felt heat creep up his neck. It seemed he had also momentarily lost his voice, both vocal and telepathic. He looked away from her questioning eyes, not wanting her to pry anything more from him.

Without giving her an answer, not that she needed it now she had seen proof of the truth of it herself, Ben closed his eyes and raised one hand to better control his next attack, his own awareness rushing through the Force towards her. Fueled as his attack was this time by the sheer stubborn urge to protect his own memories he caught Rey off guard. 

He effortlessly sliced through the memories he had visited earlier then came to a sudden standstill on a beach. A beach with a child stretching out her hand, fingers sprawled as wide as they would go. A collection of beautiful sea-shells tumbled weightlessly through the air as if in a dance around her. The little girl was so entranced by the spectacle she herself created that she didn’t seem to notice the waves stretching out to kiss her toes. Someone called, her concentration broke and the shells fell as one on the sand. She spun around, let out an unrestrained cry of happiness and ran towards a tall figure holding out a hand to her-

He was pushed out with such force this time he actually physically lost his balance and fell backwards, the back of his head scraping the wall.

Ben’s eyes shot open, his entire being filled with an overwhelming sense of recognition. Rey’s eyes were wide open too. They were boring into his, something close to fear stirring in their depths.

He opened his mouth but before he could formulate his question Rey sprung to her feet.

“I want out. Now.”

“Rey-” he tried, raising himself up and trying to get to his feet too, a difficult task since he was trembling all over. But she wouldn’t let him finish. She wouldn’t even look at him now.

“Just let me out. I need a break. Please.”

Reluctant to let her go, he knew he couldn’t keep her here against her will. Not now she so desperately wanted out. He waved his hand in front of the right sensor and the Meditation Chamber hissed open again. Rey clambered out as soon as the opening was big enough for her to squeeze through and was gone the next instant.

Ben couldn’t move. In fact he could barely keep standing. He reached out for one of the tooth-like protrusions of the Chamber’s structure to prevent himself from sinking onto his knees. He was shaking. Violently. And he couldn’t stop seeing her. That girl. Over and over again.

But had it been his memory? 

Or had it been _hers_?


	6. Chapter 6

Chapter 6

The drone of the sonic shower swelled and diminished in tandem with the red, fluctuating glow produced by countless, pinprick small circles scattered in perfect symmetry over the wall in front of her. Rey leaned into it, wishing for nothing more but to be harbored by the cleansing warmth radiating off of it. Her hands were planted palm outward against the center of the wall while her toes bumped into it below. In an attempt to leech even more comfort from the experience she dipped her chin and softly rested her forehead against it too. Closing her eyes and taking a handful of deep breaths she finally felt calmer again.

It had taken her a while to find her way back to their quarters. _His_ quarters? She wasn’t sure if that distinction even mattered anymore. The only reason Rey had found it again had probably been her luck to literally run into Azi. The helpful if not overzealous domestic droid had brought her here and had moreover insisted to assist in getting the temperature settings of the sonic shower just right. As functional as it was in its design, like everything else aboard this ship, it was far more high-tech and new than anything she had ever used. And so, despite everything, despite the crazy turns her life had taken in such an incredible short amount of time, Rey simply allowed her skin to be revitalized and her body to be enveloped in a pleasantly warm, rare moment of exquisite luxury.

Not that her current increasingly relaxed state completely prevented her from being plagued by that little girl. The child Ben had seen in her head. She had never felt more vulnerable in her life. It was a snippet of her vision. The part which she remembered the most vividly and clear. The part she cherished most. Rey had naively thought it would somehow be beyond the reach of his barrage of attacks on her mind. His attempts to cleave it open and rummage through her thoughts and memories as if they were his to rearrange and explore. It hadn’t been safe from that. Of course it hadn’t. Maybe even more so because she had deemed it out of reach. She had simply forgotten that, although born out of a vision, it had now become nothing more than a memory.

Phrasing it like that utterly failed to account for the weight of it. How this vision, this memory of that vision, exerted an irresistible pull on her. Constantly. How that glimpse into his future had made her take his hand. There was something inexplicably compelling about seeing that little girl practice her Force abilities. About Ben’s observation of the disarming scene, emitting a deep-felt sense of fondness and peace  as he did. About the way he called her to him -even though Rey never caught the name passing his lips- and how her tiny hand eagerly clasped with his.  

Rey was convinced that this part of her vision provided the most proof of how he would turn his back on the Dark Side and reconnect to the Light in him. Ben would teach the next generation of fledgling Jedi. Would guide young Force sensitive children like that little girl. She fervidly hoped she could be a part of that too. That one day she would have the knowledge of the Force and the experience in using it which she was clearly still lacking now. To teach instead of be taught. Having that vision, if only a flash of it, exposed to him felt like it endangered that future from becoming real. Maybe she was being superstitious but Rey was scared of even risking putting it at risk. So much depended on it coming true. For her faith in it to be repaid. Besides, her seeing his potential future was one thing, she wasn’t sure she wanted to contemplate what it would do to him, what it would do to _her_ if she were to catch even a glimpse of her own.

There was another strong incentive to keep that particular memory close to her chest and never again let it escape her grasp. It was what she felt in every fiber of her being at seeing Ben call that little girl to him. The way her heart swelled when she watched the child run towards him. How her chest seemed suddenly too constricted to keep that feeling inside when their hands, so different in size, locked together perfectly nonetheless.   

Rey couldn’t even begin identifying that unsettling and confusing sensation, or allow herself to investigate it too deeply. All she intuitively understood was that it wasn’t something she was even remotely willing to share with anyone. Most of all with Ben.

As if her mental image of him alone had summoned him to her, the door to their quarters slid open, the barely perceptible sound of it closing again followed by the familiar thuds of his boots as he entered.

“Rey?”

She opened her eyes at once at the sound of his voice. She had half expected it to sound angry. But it hadn’t. It had sounded concerned. She wanted to call back but something indistinct an wriggling had wrapped itself around her throat like a vine, squeezing it too tight for any sound to come out.

She turned around when she heard him approach, his hazy outlines growing bigger on the other side of the matted glass. Her breath hitched now the sight forcefully reminded her of the misted mirror on Ahch-To. Mimicking what she had done then, as well as wanting to reach out to him now her voice was still stuck in her throat, Rey took a determined step towards the opposite side of the compact shower booth. She placed her hand against the glass, fingers sprawled and palm pressed flat against it.

After a moment Ben tentatively copied the gesture like he was her mirror image trying to make up for the delay between her movement and his own. Five black dots that were his fingertips aligned almost purposefully with her own. 

Rey still didn’t trust her voice so she let the Force pulsating between them express on her behalf what she wanted to say. She wasn’t angry at him for what had happened in the Meditation Chamber. She was angry at herself for being so unpracticed in the Force. And for being as tired as she was. She had no idea how long they had been in there, minds battling, but her body had felt strained enough from the exertion for it to have been hours.

For a split second she felt the delusional - _dangerous_ \- urge to want the glass separating the two of them to dissolve. So she could claim the tangible support she needed against his sturdy frame. To hide away from everything in his embrace. To feel safe like she suspected she would feel all wrapped up in his strong arms. Not even her current nakedness stopped that longing to flare up and grow inside of her. Somehow, despite their skin not even directly touching, not holding back this purely physical longing was more intimate than anything she had ever experienced before.

“Rey..”

Heat that had nothing to do with that which the sonic shower created shot up from somewhere deep down in her core all the way to her cheeks. _Stars_. She really had to try harder keeping him out of her head. If he said her name again like _that_..

Desperately containing those particular flames from spreading Rey shifted her focus on another, _any_ other, sensation that wasn’t as treacherous and confusing. There was one that immediately presented itself, pushing all others aside. A sensation she was only too familiar with. She was hungry. _Starving_.

Ben huffed as he caught on, a puff of air fogging the glass on his side just about at the same height as the crown of her head. 

“I’ll prepare us some food.” he promised, those black impressions of his gloved fingertips fading a little as he decreased the pressure on them. Seemingly hesitating a moment longer he finally dropped his hand altogether and Rey watched his blurry silhouette becoming smaller and even more indistinct as he moved away.

She quickly retreated her own hand, feeling silly that it had stayed in place like that. Fortunately turning the sonic shower off was easier than turning it on had been. Rey looked around for her clothes only to realize the crumpled pile had gone. Panic slyly entered her bloodstream when a second look around confirmed they were really missing. _Stars_! Azi had in all likelihood taken them with him for cleaning. Just how exactly was she going to get to the wardrobe in the living room to retrieve a new set?

More panic surged through her veins at the impossibility of that prospect but then, at discovering an alcove in the far right corner, it got mercifully and wholly replaced by relief. In the alcove Azi had left her a set of sleepwear. Another luxury she had never had either. It was a simple garment, its flowy fabric a little to thin for her liking, and not nearly covering enough of her legs, arms, shoulders- Well, not nearly covering as much as her other clothes, even her new ones, did. Luckily a robe had been included with the outfit.

If Ben noticed how awkward she felt when she eventually joined him, and with his Force enhanced sensitivities there was no way he wouldn’t, he wisely refrained from commenting or even have his expression falter at what she was wearing. He was seated at the table, half of its surface now littered with data-pads and memory chips. When she had reached him Ben gave the plate placed precariously close to the edge a meaningful shove in her direction, cutlery tinkling and cup wobbling as a result.

Stomach growling loudly at the sight of food Rey unceremoniously snatched it up and walked over to the window, it was set so deep in the wall there was enough space for her to crawl onto and still have room to cross her legs in front of her.

Preferring quantity over taste she ate as fast as she could, barely discriminating between crunchy bread rolls, something round and supple that must be some sort of fruit and meat so tender she was utterly dumbfounded it seemed completely free from bones or greasy skin. And then there was that small, fragile, deep brown, creamy dome that quavered on her plate at the tiniest movement and which melted instantly on her tongue when she tried it.  

Still savoring the new taste Rey looked up to find Ben watching her intently, datapad in his hand completely forgotten.

“What?” his silent but amused stare prompted her to ask.  

“You eat like a starved gundark.”

Something about that statement was apparently very funny because she could see he had to exert considerable self-control to stop a grin from breaking through.

Rey wiped her mouth with the back of her hand, self-conscious of her eating habits but not embarrassed. “I never knew what tomorrow’s portion was going to be. If I would even have a meal.”

The intangible memory of her being perpetually hungry on Jakku hovered in the air between them and she knew he remembered it too now. The subtle curve of his lips morphed into a straight line again as if in sincere regret. Ben held her gaze, clearly pondering on what to say when she had the sudden and weird sensation of her stomach -full as it was- lifting a little then drop. The elongated ribbons of stars behind her abruptly regained their twinkling, diamond-shaped forms again. Then the cruiser shook a little as if it had hit something.

“We probably docked at repair station Beta 5. Slightly ahead of schedule.” Ben provided in answer to her unspoken question.

“Where’s that?”

“Felucia System.” he replied disinterestedly, returning his attention to the datapad balanced in his palm.  

_Great_. Another system she wasn’t familiar with. She hadn’t even heard of this one. She didn’t just know precious little about the Force, she knew even less about the myriad of systems across the galaxy. In many ways, _too many ways_ , she was still that ignorant, naive scavenger from Jakku.  Rey stared outside and let her gaze wander over the scaffold-like structure of the repair station the Dominance was suspended in, thoughts wandering and the only sounds to be heard that of Ben replacing one datapad with another, then another, each dropped increasingly more careless on the table while the memory chips rattled with each impact.

Listening to him working his way through reports without actually seeing him had a strange meditative effect. Rey felt herself slowly but surely drift away. Then the ear-grating sound of a stool scraped backwards startled her from her barely begun catnap. She shifted her gaze away from that of the far away stars blinking dully back at her to see Ben sit down on the sofa, one hand running through his hair so it afterwards fell in untamed strands in front of his eyes.

Rey picked up the empty plate from her lap and placed it next to her before pushing herself off of the window sill. It was probably not a good idea to fall asleep against the cold unforgiving surface of the window. For a split second she considered lying down on the bed, if only so Ben would have more space to himself on the sofa. But watching him rub his tired eyes then stretch out his long limbs as if preparing to settle into a position in which he would be comfortable enough to sleep made her change course before she had even set out on it. He didn’t give any sign of protest as she curled up next to him again.

She slept as soundly as the previous night, artificially constructed and partly meaningless as that concept was in space, and she assumed the same was true for Ben seeing he hadn’t exchanged the sofa for the empty but far more suitable bed either. In fact, it was an arrangement that apparently worked well enough for them both to not change it over the next couple of days. And those varied little. There was no time to waste and they spent most of it in the closed-off, deceptively spacious sphere. Inwardly she had come to refer to it as the giant Porg egg. It made her feel a little less intimidated by the daunting task of effectively closing off her mind to any future invader in a handful of days. 

The only -unavoidable- addition to their established routine were the meetings they had to attend for formality’s sake alone. As much as Rey hated being in the same room with what was left of the First Order’s leadership, if sitting around a table with hardened military officers discussing ways to rebuild their armada was what it took to at least have that cobweb thin thread to a better future for the galaxy not break, then that’s what she would do. And it would only be the first step down that long road too.

Her presence at least reminded everyone that she and Ben would take Snoke’s place as leaders. It was a ludicrous idea, really. One she only half-heartedly condoned. But she was here, for the time being at least, and therefore she would have to play her role well if only to survive long enough to really bring about a change.

During these meetings she hadn’t said a word but had carefully observed the dynamics between each of the men and women seated around her, the Force subtly enhancing her awareness of their individual moods and thoughts. It was useful practice if nothing else. In truth, she felt out of her depth with all the planning and organizing. She hoped she had molded her expression in such a way that it would fool everyone, including the General.

It was disturbing how menacing a man could be without having to raise his voice or resort to violence but just by oozing a cold, calculating aura instead. General Hux dissected every proposal with clinical precision; saw to it that his every order was followed to the letter by executing strict control over everyone else; used his sneers and derision like weapons as effectively as a saber. He was always there, in his creaseless uniform, with not a hair out of place and either standing or sitting ramrod straight.      

What worried Rey most was that the General clearly had perceived how she and Ben didn’t form one, impenetrable front yet. That they had some way to go before uniting with one shared vision. Nothing in his words betrayed his mistrust and suspicion, but then he didn’t need to voice those. The steely glint in his eyes informed her of it every time they fixed either on her or Ben. Especially when his scrutinizing gaze flicked between them as if hoping to detect a weakness he could exploit. There was no doubt in her mind the man would be a potential danger. But the reality was that he wasn’t even their most pressing concern right now. That was Moraband and the Knights of Ren who awaited them there.  

It was why Rey preferred being in the Meditation Chamber rather than in those seemingly endless meetings, regardless of how equally cooped up she felt in both. It really was easier to focus inside of it. And she was getting better at repelling Ben’s attacks. When he thrusted she parried. When she struck he retaliated in kind. There was an increasing balance between their powers, equally strong invading and defending attempts ending more and more in stalemates.

And so they continued to mentally circle each other. He jabbed at her memories and she got sucked into that gaping hole on Ahch-To; saw herself strapped to that chair on Starkiller base; crawled with Finn through the air duct while rathtars rampaged overhead; hugged Leia before walking up the ramp of the Falcon to leave for Master Skywalker-

Rey slammed the gates to her mind shut, reversing the flow of the Force towards Ben and accessing his memories in turn so she suddenly looked down upon a young boy with familiar dark eyes and scruffy hair framing his pale face. He screwed his eyes shut and pressed his hands against his ears to block out the sound of two people arguing, their angry voices travelling through the entire freighter. The scene morphed into another in which he was older and wore a set of robes similar to Master Skywalker’s. He sat cross-legged and gazed intently at his own hands in order to not feel every pair of eyes of the other students bore holes into his back. In the next memory he was younger again, head peeping out between the elegantly carved balustrade of an ivory balcony, eyes swimming with tears as he gazed after the Falcon leaving-

Ben shut her out, not pausing to dive into her memories instead, but she wouldn’t let him in long enough to see much before turning the current again. She was mending her frayed pilot doll, biting her lower lip in concentration; He was slicing through the air with a blue lightsaber, sweat trickling down his temples; She fixed BB-8’s antenna and smiled at the series of excited beeps she let out; He was slammed against the floor as Snoke rose from his Throne and directed bolts of lightning from his fingertips so that his whole body convulsed with pain; She doubled over and howled in pain as Teedo rammed her own staff into her stomach before throwing it in the sand in front of her kneeling form gasping for air; He lowered his hood and reached for the silver and black mask covering his face, it hissed open at the touch; She slid down a long cable then, as soon as her feet had touched the ground, pulled down the scarf covering her mouth and slid the sand-goggles up.     

Their memories were alternating each other at an increasingly faster pace until they were effectively reduced to a jumbled mess of incomprehensible excerpts, of snatches of bodiless voices and a tangle of out of focus images.

And then clarity and order was restored in one single, lucid moment and she found herself completely against her will on that beach again. It was different this time though. Rey saw herself standing next to the little girl, their bare feet planted in the wet sand as they both anticipated with intense mirth the chasing and waiting involved as waves withdrew then came rolling back. Suddenly distracted, the girl darted off, bent down and started collecting shells, exclaiming rapture more loudly with every new find. A mischievous twinkle lit up her hazel eyes just before she threw all of the shells high in the air, deftly defying gravity with the help of the Force and making them swirl in a dizzying dance around her.

Rey shook her head. It seemed her fear had been justified. Her vision had changed. _How was this even possible_?! But she couldn’t stop it. Ben was holding on to it so it kept replaying in her head. No matter how hard she tried she couldn’t trace it in her mind, or where his started and hers ended.

“Stop.. _Stop_!”

It took a moment longer to realize she had shouted the words out loud with a wave of the Force pushing outward from her center followed by a loud crack as she felt it collide with the spherical walls.

_As she felt it collide with Ben_..

(…)

His back smacked hard against the floor, knocking all the air out of his lungs. Ben lay there, dazed, long limbs sprawled. He stared groggily up at the ceiling. With an awed fascination he traced the zigzagging fissure that snaked along the supposedly unbreakable material of the Chamber, practically cracking it open like an eggshell. Through the crevice he glimpsed the other ceiling, the one of the room that harbored the Chamber; an almost blindingly pristine white splitting open to let in a placid, solid gray.

Rey appeared close by, filling up his entire field of vision as she kneeled down at his side. It took him a moment to have the lines of her face sharpen and her features come into clearer focus. Her eyes flew over him, probably to check for injuries. She looked frightened and guilt-ridden at the same time. Her hand reached out, hovered tentatively near his temple then she brushed his hair out of his face, her fingers crazing his skin leaving fiery trails in their wake.

Feeling his strength return Ben pushed himself up and let out a groan in pain when his spine vehemently protested the movement. Rey  half rose and held out a hand for him to latch onto. He did. Not that it helped much. Either she was too weakened by that sudden outburst draining her of her physical strength at least, or he was simply heavier than she expected. She nearly tumbled forward onto his chest and only just in time shifted her weight back onto her heels. Teeth set with the effort and bracing herself she tried again.

With their combined strength he managed to get to his feet, world spinning slightly as a result so he swayed on the spot and tried desperately not to unbalance Rey with his surpassing weight. They both staggered a little then steadied, hands still interlocked and almost crushed between their bodies. There wasn’t even room to unlock them, every labored breath he took expanding his chest just enough to feel the rise and fall of her breathing too. _Stars_. She was close enough for him to feel her breath ghost on his collarbones.

She didn’t move away from him. Didn’t move at all except for those slightly strained breaths going in and breaths going out. She didn’t look up at him either. He gazed down, relishing the rare change to find those hazel eyes this close. Even through her dark eyelashes he recognized that flicker of fear. Not of him. But of what she had done to him just now. Not that he was gravely wounded, it had mainly hurt because he hadn’t bothered to treat those bruises and sore ribs yet. Not her fault. His.  

“Don’t be afraid.”

Maybe it was the fact that it had sounded like a perfect echo of the interrogation at Starkiller Base that made Rey tilt her head and blink up at him. Or maybe it was because she finally heard the sincerity in those words.

“If you fear your power, you fear yourself. And fear paralyzes. It cripples you. Tears you apart-” his voice actually broke, he felt it splinter in his throat.

Fear had changed him. He didn’t want it to change her too. _Break_ her too.

“Ben..”

How could she say his name like that? Make him shiver like this. One, monosyllabic word that went straight for his core. His name on her lips. _How could he ever hope to guard himself against that_?

“It’s not too late.”

He wanted to believe her. He wanted to so bad it physically hurt. Voice still reduced to shards scraping his throat painfully Ben instead mimicked her earlier gesture and brushed a single strand of her hair behind her ear with more patience than he had ever been able to muster these last years. His gaze strayed down to her small, sun-freckled nose, its tip less than an inch from his own. Something in him, something overwhelming and exhilarating that coiled around his entire body, urged him to cover even that negligible distance between them. If only to lightly rub his nose against hers. Once.      

Even as he leaned forward an electronic wailing burst into life around them. Rey startled and hurriedly took a step back, her hand slipping from his grasp. The sense of loss that washed over him was very close to have him stagger again but Ben mentally forced himself to stay standing.

He hit the sensor with unnecessary force, forgetting for a moment that the Chamber might actually no longer respond to that. Sure enough only a violent tremor traveled through the broken sphere. Ben tried again, more carefully this time. Slowly, jarringly, the two halves disconnected. Ben clambered out, turning back to offer Rey a hand but she had already deftly crawled out herself.

They didn’t speak on their way to the flight deck. In all honesty Ben had no idea what he could, what he perhaps _should_ , say. He knew they had started training late but he hadn’t realized that it was time already. That they had to leave for Moraband this soon. The Medidation Chamber might be able to block out sound and not even let in something as permeable as light, it didn’t slow down the pace of time outside of it. Well. It _had_ been sound and light proof. Not anymore of course.

He could sense Rey’s regret like a deeply embarrassed throb in the Force flowing as always between them. Without really understanding why, it struck him as oddly endearing that she would care so much for destroying an object that could be rebuild. Maybe he would do it himself. If he had time. Which probably wasn’t a very realistic expectation. Still. He remembered how fulfilling it had been to craft something with his own hands instead of crushing objects, or people for that matter, with the devastating power of the Force. In a sense constructing that Chamber had been his only true accomplishment. Which was why it baffled him he didn’t even experience a hint of anger at its current and very much marred state. But why would he? It _could_ be rebuild. _He wasn’t exactly sure how much that also applied to humans_..   

It was hard to truly understand that Rey had only so recently discovered her connection to the Force. How her abilities with it had remained dormant for so long. And yet, as attuned as he was to his own abilities, the raw, uncontrollable power she had just unleashed wasn’t that much unlike his own. It was, in fact, very similar. It was almost paradoxical how much this was also true for their lives. They had walked different paths but experienced that same intense feeling of abandonment and loneliness. And those experiences had made them both equally desperate to bury it deep inside of themselves. Not deep enough apparently. At least not deep enough to hide it from each other.

Except maybe that one memory. The one with the little girl.

It had been extremely frustrating to try and find that little girl in Rey’s head again and when he had, or rather when he had found it again in his own and projected it in hers, when his memory had fit like the piece of a puzzle into hers, Rey had stopped it. Judging by the way she had intuitively lashed out at him through the Force, he might never get the chance again to access that particular memory. _Their_ memory. _Vision_. _Did she really not see…_?

Ben slowed his pace as this last thought sank in, eventually coming to a complete halt at the threshold beyond which the tunnel like corridor opened up into the spacious flight deck. Taking the opportunity to catch up to them Azi appeared around the corner they just turned and zoomed towards them.

Absentmindedly Ben took the hoodless, thin leather cloak the droid offered him and swung it around his shoulders, already reaching for the one meant for Rey before Azi could hand it to her. He draped it around her small form, his hands framing her shoulders for a split second.

“You are ready.” he assured her, not averting his eyes from hers. It wasn’t a question. He hadn’t intended it to be one. It was a statement. The truth. As new as she was to all this she was more than capable. Besides, he wouldn’t leave her side.  

“I have to be.” Rey replied, almost in resignation. But her eyes shone bright and alert. She _was_ ready.

Ben steered her towards the shuttle, his fingers lightly curled around her wrist. Hux was waiting for them with two rows of Elite Stormtroopers cradling their blasters against their glinting, white armor. Inside of the shuttle the few officers that had the privilege to join them to the Sith Homeworld immediately ceased talking at their approach. Their uniforms were appropriately somber but showed off their importance anyway and their boots had been polished until they shone. Each expression held a varying degree of apprehension and a vulture-like excitement, it made for a particularly revolting mix.  

Hux moved his balled fists behind him, resting his arms in the small of his back in perfect, sharp angles as he fell into step next to them with a very curt “Empress Rey. Emperor Kylo.”

“It must be hard to have to bid your Master farewell.” he continued to remark without looking at Ben, voice laced with contempt instead of the sympathy his words suggested, “It _is_ hard to believe our leader is gone when I think I am correct in saying that we both thought him undefeatable. And then to perish like this..” the General paused, possibly for effect Ben thought irritably, then pretended to have regained his composure in the wake of pronouncing such a tragedy. “In the end it didn’t even take a Jedi to finish him.”

Ben felt Rey on his other side jerk a little. His own spine tingled in alertness too despite his effort to not allow himself to be riled. _Baited_. He wasn’t going to play along with his petty General’s game.

“Ironic, don’t you think?” Hux added when Ben remained completely silent, his tone indignant and accusing at the same time.

“The Supreme Leader’s legacy will live on.” Ben clipped, only just resisting the urge to drag the man face-down along the floor and up the ramp. 

“Undoubtedly.”Hux readily agreed, “We are all extremely fortunate to be the rightful heirs of his noble ambitions and limitless genius.” 

Ben’s blood boiled as the three of them ascended the ramp and he was excessively glad when Hux dipped his head in their direction, a show of obedience which had an almost mocking effect, and then mingled with the officers who parted like waves before them both. Ben didn’t stop until he reached the cockpit with Rey, crossing his arms and forcing his breathing to calm in an attempt to clear his head and prepare for the trial ahead; not even bothering to glance back at the macabre presence of the sealed pod enshrouded in an exquisite, blood-red sheet.  


	7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

The shuttle sped through a thick layer of rust colored clouds that just didn’t seem to end. It was what Rey had imagined drowning in the sand of the Sinking Fields would be like. A slow but inevitable descent. An unchanging, dull hue pressing in all around. Lungs increasingly straining to draw breath.

Looking apprehensively out of the cockpit’s viewport and seeing _nothing_ felt eerily like suffocating. Rey shifted her weight impatiently from one foot to the other, the only outlet for her rising nerves that she could allow herself. Anything more overt and the dozen First Order officers behind her would surely notice. Nerves really wouldn’t help her right now in any case. She should focus on what lay ahead even though she may not be able to see it yet. She should pull up those walls and barriers around her mind. Protect her thoughts. Her memories. _That_ memory. _Vision_.

The more Rey tried to repress it the more it seemed to slip through her net and right back to the surface. It couldn’t stay there. It would be too dangerous. Too easy a prey for those Knights of Ren. It _had_ been too easy a prey for their Master. For Ben. He had changed her vision of the little girl. It had been her not him this time on that beach. But how – _why_ – had her vision changed? Had that really been his doing?

She cast a furtive glance at Ben next to her. He hadn’t moved an inch since they boarded. His gaze was so stern and intense she wouldn’t be surprised if it actually managed to pierce through the dense nebula around them. He also looked paler. His black hair clinging to his temples a sharp contrast with his skin. And then a muscle in his jaw flexed for a split second as he clenched it.

The shuttle veered an instant later. Rey whisked her attention back to the viewport. They finally shot out of the shapeless mass of clouds and made a sharp turn to avoid crashing into one of the jagged mountains that made up most of the desolate landscape below. The peaks flying passed on either side had saw like ridges that could easily tear apart their transport’s hull. The rock they were made of were almost that same rust color as the clouds.

Rey shivered, but not at the sight of the hostile territory. It was a sudden change in the flux of the Force. It stagnated. Froze. It grew _colder_. Not in the environmental sense. But _inside_ of her. A sense of foreboding maybe. Of what was to come.

And then she felt Ben’s energy darken. He had closed his eyes in concentration and she could feel him tap into the Dark Side, feel him wallow in it to the point where the Light in him was but a dim, tiny fleck of warmth in the encircling and growing shadows.    

The shuttle shuddered as it touched down and Rey almost lost her footing. She had been too fixed on Ben too have noticed they had arrived at the surface. In a reflex he reached out to steady her but almost imbalanced her further when through his hand clutched around her wrist a dark current of the Force he had gathered around himself seeped into her very bones at the touch.

She took a deep breath to repress a sense of panic spiking and also to give herself a few more seconds before meeting his eyes. They were an unfathomably deep brown though she thought she could detect a flicker of regret in them. A wordless inquiry into her state.

Rey gave him an almost imperceptible nod to let him know she was as ready as she was ever going to be. But perhaps more so that she understood the necessity of the web of the Dark Side of the Force he’d spun. Not that understanding the need for it made it easier to not be affected by it. To not be intimidated. He _was_ more intimidating now. The lines in his face had become even sharper, his jaw more angular and his nose more pronounced like it was chiseled out of stone.

Not for the first time it unsettled her just how much more she felt drawn in instead of repelled by those tendrils of darkness snaking their way around her. Their tangible power was once again undeniably alluring. _Too_ alluring. She could not afford to be distracted now.

The ramp opened smoothly, letting in a flurry of dry, biting wind, and the officers stood as much to the side as they could to let her and Ben through. Cloaks billowing as they disembarked General Hux was close on their heels, followed in turn by the hovering pod and the procession of officers. With every step she took Rey steeled her mental defenses, at first rather feverishly checking for any openings she had missed or potential holes in that invisible wall, but gradually more calmly as she reassured herself nothing was going to penetrate her mind without her permission.     

They strode through a long, narrow canyon with those jagged mountains rising up on either side, the sunlight diffused by the thick layer of clouds to be nothing more than a dull glow as it reached the dust covered ruins below. There were pillars and statues nearly unrecognizable as such because of their crumbled state. The path was made up of large slabs of sandblasted stone and ran as straight as a ruler. At the end of the canyon loomed the imposing Sith Temple. It was an unadorned pyramid-shaped structure with a vertical cleft that split the tip in two, revealing the black, glassy stone beneath its outer layer.

As they drew nearer Rey could feel Ben’s Darkness expanding to envelop her too. He felt different. No. Not different. Like he had before. Like Kylo dueling her in that snow covered pine forest. Despite knowing he had to continue wearing that mask, that it was naive to think he could destroy that part of him instantly, it made the hairs on the back of her neck instinctively stand on end.

There was movement in the periphery of her vision and Rey automatically reached for the hilt of the lightsaber on her belt. It was a snake. Its skin was so dark it was like a shadow crawling towards them. She could see more like it slithering all over the ruins. It almost seemed as if their sleek, lengthy bodies were made up of a myriad of smaller snakes writhing and hissing under its skin. Even more unnerving were their bright red eyes glinting maliciously at her.

_Don’t worry about the snake. It’s not going to harm you._

It was an incredible relief to hear his voice, not Kylo’s, but _his_ voice, in her head. Though it didn’t make her any less wary of the snake still making for them.

_I’m not so sure-_

Ben crushed it under his boot with a disgusting squelching sound as the snake shot forwards, not even having to break his stride and leaving nothing more than a stain on the cracked stone.

_I told you not to worry,_ came his almost complacent reply.

Rey shook her head slightly, hand retreating again from the hilt, _Just do me a favor and mention the fact you have a plan to make sure I shouldn’t have to worry next time you tell me not to worry._

_I’ll try to remember._

Maybe it was the characteristic and paradoxical mix of the stoic and yet at the same time teasing tone of his voice that boosted her own confidence. Whatever it was, it made the Darkness hanging around him, around _them_ , a little less disorienting.

Finally they approached the gate, another massive, monolithic black triangle. Only now did she see the two rows of three cloaked, hooded and masked figures. Unmoving sentinels that she had failed to distinguish from the imposing, equally dark backdrop of the Temple. Their Force signatures too were scrambled and dispersed, as if she could only catch snatches of it. Rey didn’t doubt it was their doing, a smoke screen to hide their true strength, to confuse their enemy. _It was working_ , she thought, quickly swallowing down another surge of panic.

_Don’t forget to breathe_ , he reminded her, sounding more tense himself now too despite that advice.

_Easier said than done_ , she muttered back, resisting the instinct to reach for her weapon again, instead her fingers remained poised on her thigh, tips tingling as the fabric of her tunic moved under it with every step she took closer to the robed figures.

_The first one on the left is Keeva Ren. She shouldn’t be a problem._ Ben told her, evidently intending to provide the names belonging to each of those horrible masks. Rey simply tried to absorb it all and hoped she would be able to remember which of the Knights she should stay clear off the most, though they all imbued her with enough apprehension to not want to get too close to any one of them.

_Darius Ren. I’ve rarely seen him lose his temper._ Rey moved her gaze from the elaborately carved mask to take in the simple design of the one next to it. 

_Ika Ren. To be honest I never know what goes on in her head. But she’s generally controllable._ With its cobweb like design her mask was just as unreadable as Ben had described the woman behind it to be.

_Tori Ren. Always strikes first. It is both her greatest strength and weakness._ Rey involuntarily swallowed again at seeing the beak like protrusion from the Knight’s mask, turning her effectively into a menacing raven she did not wish to cross and fervently prayed she never had to.

_That leaves Marrek Ren._ Ben indicated the broad-shouldered Knight standing between the bird-like one and the only remaining, unknown Knight. His mask was as solid as his built with only two narrow and steeled-rimmed slits to look through.

_And Yara Ren._ The last Knight seemed to be the smallest, her mask definitely was, nothing more than a subtle layer to hide her face. Across it ran an intricate pattern; elegant rivers of metallic silver like blood coursing through translucent veins. _Both are probably the strongest of the Knights. I’ve learned to trust them less than Hux._

Rey gave him a small nod, trusting the gesture to convey how she had paid attention to his descriptions. How she would remember the warning that came with most of them. They passed the row of Knights in silence and at first she wasn’t sure they would join them seeing how still they stood but then they lowered their heads, masked chins all the way to their chests, as a mark of reverence for their Master and the pod carrying the body of their Supreme Leader which floated along in her and Ben’s wake.

They stepped through the gate and into a vast, dark chamber in which their footsteps bounced off the walls an returned as hollow echoes of themselves.

_Stay._ Ben simply said through their telepathic connection, then, without any further instructions, took a few strides forward to face another, smaller gate which was still closed.  

Rey eyed him nervously as he stretched out his hand towards the gate that had a spidery script run all over it’s smooth surface. Not wanting to break his concentration, which she felt like a sudden clarity in his otherwise obscure energy, she let her gaze wander through the vaulted space. That same coldness she had sensed on the shuttle returned in full force, this time accompanied by the strange awareness of being watched.

She almost startled at the proximity of the Knights, who had followed them inside only one step behind Hux and the pod. The officers were filing inside in pairs too now. As much as she disliked them, Rey could sympathize with their looks of unease and dread.

Although remaining as silent as they had been, the Knights’ presence in the Force had changed drastically. They were now like those sharp ridges of the mountains outside. Rey felt them poised to stab as she tried to increase the distance between herself and them. It was like trying to walk across a floor with a thousand shards scattered across it and trying to avoid all of them without looking down. She had to feel her way through, _around_ , and evade their attempts to test her barriers while not betraying how unsettled it made her feel.

But it was not what made her feel cold. It didn’t match that feeling of being watched either. That came from something a lot weaker. Something _s._ More than one. It was like there were a dozen or more pinpricks of fluctuating energy too weak to really materialize scattered across the chamber.

“You sense them?”

This time she did actually startle and it took every ounce of self-control not to swivel around to face the Knight who had addressed her in a mechanical, droning voice.

Releasing the tension in her shoulders, in her entire body, Rey turned to look into the almost empty mask of Darius Ren, realizing there was no point in asking how he knew, he hadn’t broken into her head, she knew that much, and concluding that the horrorstruck look on her face must have been telling enough.

“Yes.. Are they ghosts?” the question had tumbled over her lips before she could reflect on how bad an idea it might prove to be.

“No.” another Knight answered for him, the one with the slits in his mask, and his voice had an almost grinding quality to it, like he crushed the words instead of spoke them, “What you sense are mere imprints of their Force signatures. Less than specters.”

Trusting Ben had not mentioned how little this Marrek Ren could be trusted without reason Rey directed her next question, as scared as she was to ask it, at Darius again.

“Whose Force signatures?”

She couldn’t see him lift his brows in surprise at her ignorance but Rey didn’t doubt that that was the expression he wore. They _all_ wore in all likelihood as they crowded around her. Nothing in his distorted voice betrayed anything though. “Forgive me. I thought you knew. This is  the execution chamber.”

Her blood instantly ran cold, “The what?”

“It’s where prisoners were executed. _Jedi_ prisoners.” the Knight with the beak jutting out from her mask supplied, her shrill voice completely void of emotion.

Rey could only just in time stop herself from staggering back at this. At the realization she was essentially sensing shreds of souls. _Jedi_ souls. “How can I still sense them if they’re dead?”

“Ancient Sith magic ripped their souls from their bodies, there’s bound to be some traces of those left. Nothing more than old dust now though.” Marrek replied coldly, unfazed by what he told her and stamping one foot one the ground to have that dust rise and twirl down helplessly until it was claimed by the ground again.

It was nearly impossible to contain the anger and pain surging through her. Rey bit down hard on the inside of her lower lip and balled her fists in an attempt to keep the strong emotions from bursting out. Nevertheless Tori cocked her head in such a way it inadvertently reminded her of the steelpeckers back on Jakku. The knight fixed her with a piercing look that seemed keen to go right through her skull, even though Rey managed to deflect the jab at her mind.

“You think it excessively cruel.”

It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. Her thoughts effortlessly derived from her features and body language alone. _What point was there from keeping them out of her mind when her face betrayed all of her emotions anyway?!_

“No worse than what the Jedi did to the Sith. To _us_.” the small Knight, who’d kept to the back of the group emerged from between their shadowed forms, her voice nothing more than a hateful hiss.

Rey stared at the delicate mask with the rivers of silver running through it as Yara Ren halted across from her. Before she could ask what she meant by that she felt the powerful and sudden tug on her lightsaber. She barely managed to reach for the hilt when it flew from her belt, the tips of her fingers only just curled around it while Yara held the other end.

The Knight added a belated, “May I?” without letting go or giving any sign she intended to.

“I’d rather you didn’t.” Rey bit out, yanking the lightsaber out of Yara’s grip and reattaching it to her belt, her hand resting on its hilt protectively now.

“Of course. I meant no offense.” even through the mask her voice sounded silken now, “I was simply curious about your weapon.”

“Skywalker’s..” muttered Marrek darkly.

“A Jedi’s weapon.” Tori noted meaningfully, as if that settled it. As if it told them all they needed to know about her. And would justify how they would treat Rey as a result.

Yara snarled a hostile “How did you get it?” and started circling Rey like a bird of prey. She didn’t get to complete one round now the tall figure of Ben thankfully returned to her side.

“It was a gift.” he ground out angrily.  

“A _gift_?” Yara snapped, almost tauntingly.

Then she gasped and her hands flew to her neck now Ben had stopped the flow of air with the Force.

“It is my family’s heirloom, I can do with it as I please.”

Yara dropped to the ground, massaging her bruised windpipe and despite the mask she wore Rey could _feel_ the glare she threw at Ben. Regaining her breath she had nevertheless slyly removed all resentfulness when she spoke, “I didn’t mean to imply that you couldn’t.”

“Then what did you mean to imply?” he pressed her, his quiet fury so palpable none of the other Knights dared or were stupid enough to try and help Yara back to her feet. And so she scrambled up herself, panting a little as she replied in a subdued voice that didn’t quite succeed in filtering its venom out of it entirely, “Nothing, Master. I was simply struck by your generosity in such a gift. But I know it is not my place to doubt it.”

“No. It isn’t.” Ben clipped back, his tone carrying such finality that the Knights parted to make room even before he placed his hand in the small of Rey’s back to steer her away from them.  

_What happened?_ He asked her urgently as soon as they had taken the lead again and preceded the procession once more.

_Nothing. Just.. Just don’t leave me alone with them again._

_I didn’t. I was watching out for you. I had to open the gate, none of the others can do it._ He replied, sounding defensive and worried at the same time.

_I know. Just.. Stay closer than that._ Rey nudged her chin in the direction of the gaping archway.

A pleased smugness rippled through the Force for the briefest of moments at her plea though he mostly still radiated concern. Finally she could feel his thumb ever so tentatively rub her back with one soft stroke. _I will._

_You have become a lot stronger at building a wall around your mind. If you hadn’t, I would’ve felt your distress sooner._ He added by way of a belated apology as  they made to step over the threshold.

_Something tells me it’s a good thing I did_. She didn’t even need to throw an explanatory look over her shoulder at the Knights flanking the pod that held the gruesome remains of Snoke.  

Ben was silent for a moment and he sounded nothing short of vengeful when he finally assured her, _they still obey me. They will obey you too._

His phrasing made her extremely uneasy but Rey recognized his protectiveness in that statement. That _promise_. She just hoped that what strength she could draw from it would sustain her as they were the first to step into the crypt.


	8. Chapter 8

Chapter 8

The Sith chalice ignited with a viper-like hiss. The crevices carved on its bulbous body and running along the four scythe-like handles glowed a fiery red while black smoke coiled seductively from its fountain-shaped lid. Head reverently lowered Keeva Ren took a step back from the ancient relic to rejoin the other Knights kneeling as unmovable pillars in a circle around Snoke’s tomb. Within moments the crypt, a suffocating chamber with low ceilings and crumbling graves, was filled with the pervasive scent of Korriban incense. Its richness was treacherous. It befuddled the mind and ensnared the senses.

Ben felt Rey almost clumsily bump into his shoulder as they watched the pod being lowered into the gaping mouth of the tomb. She was close to swaying on her feet. He had a fairly good hunch as to why. He quickly let some of the sober state of his own mind flow into her intoxicated one; clarity evaporating the opaque fog brought on by the hypnotic incense. Unnoticed by any of the others he held her wrist and steadied her like he had done on the shuttle.       

That seemed to have done the trick. Rey stirred as if coming out of the beginnings of a trance then straightened herself, posture all alertness.

_I’m okay._ She assured him hurriedly through their bond, adding a little piqued when that didn’t make him let go of her, _Really. I am._

His fingers reluctantly uncurled from her wrist. As irrational as he knew it was, somehow that small but tangible connection had made him feel a little less wary, a little less on edge. They were deep inside an ancient Sith Temple, surrounded by six very capable Force users and those that were left of the First Order’s military elite.   

He knew he could fool them. All of them. He _had_. But for how much longer? Rey being here made him hyperaware of everything around them. Of every danger. Every potential dagger hidden up a sleeve. Every Kyber crystal-powered saber that could go from dormant to erupting in seconds. Every blaster that could switch from stun to kill. But perhaps more than this the real danger was wavering loyalty.

The knights weren’t likely to accept Rey’s position as his equal. Some of them barely acknowledged _his_ position as their Master. It was disconcerting how little hidden their mistrust was. He knew it had grown over the years, but to this degree? That painful truth made it all the more pressing for this charade of mourning to end.

_It won’t be much longer now._ He let her know, tone bitter and impatient.

The relief she felt at this was strangely short-lived, she remained silent for a moment longer then said back in a subdued voice, _I’m glad that he’s dead. But no funeral should be like this.._

As beautiful as her integrity and sincerity made her, it was also a weakness that could be exploited. But he understood the feeling. Despite that his hate for Snoke overshadowed most of this understanding, the crypt, the entire temple, did feel hollow and threatening to him too. As a place for honoring the dead it was glaringly void of grief and instead saturated in greed and ambition. Ben felt her revolt at the contradiction but could do little to remedy it.

He had gradually closed himself off from all of that. He had to. He had learned to become immune to how intimidating and ominous Sith rituals and places of worship could be. Had hardened himself against how selfish and pitiless most bonds, if they could be called that, were. How deceitful any display of emotion or rhetoric. Like the Sith, the First Order dealt in absolutes. And those absolute rules were simple. If you were alive you either demanded obedience or offered it. If you were dead then it simply meant someone else who had been eagerly awaiting your demise would take your place. Rank or bloodline had ultimately little effect on that inescapable paradigm.

It was one of the reasons why Ben didn’t bother listening to a word of Hux’s undoubtedly impelling eulogy. Despite the feigned sense of loss and pledge for revenge his booming voice was aptly magnified by the cold stone and multiplied into goading echoes. Then he sensed Rey’s abrupt surge of annoyance. _Anger_.

Hand automatically reaching for his lightsaber, Ben only had time to register the stab aimed at her mind when she had already struck back in defense. She did not miss her target. Teeth bared but clenched to stifle a cry of discomfort, Tori Ren only just managed to conceal her sudden imbalance by placing her palms on the ground before her in a sign of worship and farewell to Snoke. She was breathing hard. So was Rey. She had paled but otherwise looked unharmed. As anxious as Ben was to confirm the latter, he had to trust her to prevail on her own. Not that every fiber of his body wasn’t poised to strike too. To let the protective rage bubbling under his skin run its destructive course.

Instead he instantly expanded his awareness with the Force, allowing the edge of his consciousness to press against those of his Knights, warning them off of interfering with what they had all sensed. Tori Ren now bowed her head as if in agony, clutching her mask with one hand, fingers trembling and contorted like the legs of a dead spider still twitching. Then it was over. Ben felt Rey release her attack as sudden as she had launched it. Tori Ren’s rigid body slumped a little before she gathered her strength and sat up straighter, the beak of her mask quivering with her labored breathing. 

There was a tense silence in which Ben belatedly realized the harsh echoes of Hux’s speech faded away as his voice trailed off mid-sentence. The calculating gaze in his cold eyes was indication enough that he had picked up on the deviant behavior of one of the Knights. Unfortunately the General didn’t need to possess Force abilities to guess at what could have transpired. And guess with eerie accuracy in his case too probably.  

Hux shot him a sly look, one corner of his mouth curling upwards before resuming to speak, voice laced with increased fervor. It made Ben instinctively increase the grip on the hilt of his lightsaber; fingers itching to ignite it, to run his buzzing red saber right through the man and watch life drain from his face..  

_That was risky_. Ben projected in Rey’s head, not exactly an accusation and not exactly just a statement of fact either.

_She was hammering at my head like a kriffing steelpecker..!_ she hissed back, even telepathically she sounded agitated. Maybe her outburst had also been fueled by the remnant of the intoxicating incense in her system, an effect she hadn’t been prepared for. Ben couldn’t blame her for losing her patience no matter how much he condemned the risk she had taken just now. Had he asked too much of her already? Should he have been less concerned with the politics of appearing as the new unity to rule the First Order in the wake of Snoke’s death?

Although straining to contain his own unease he reached out to calm her, to provide her with an anchor to hold on to. She responded a little hesitantly, as if opening herself up to him in this situation would cause her protective walls to show cracks and invite even more of the intermittent volley of probes the Knights had plagued her with just subtly enough to evade his immediate detection.

It took every ounce of his self-control not to reach for her wrist again, but he wasn’t sure she would permit him and the gesture was bound to be perceived too now everyone’s, not just the Knights’, attention seemed heightened and primed to catch either of them faltering.

_How could he stand so close and yet feel so far removed from her side?_

_Why was she too stubborn to let him in?!_

Finally she relented. Finally she allowed his energy to mingle with hers. All he wanted to fervently convey with it was that she had made it through the ordeal. The first of many undoubtedly still to come. But together they were strong enough to face every single one of those. In time they would crush everyone foolish enough to stand in their way.

There was silence again. Hux had finished at last. Ben stretched out his arm, fingers sprawled as he used the Force to move the slab of stone; it fell unceremoniously into place with a deep, reverberating thud; rather crudely sealing away the proof the Supreme Leader had been killed with a lightsaber in a tomb that would never be opened again.

As eager to leave as he was, Ben didn’t need to urge Rey into motion. She immediately fell into step next to him as they retraced their way back outside. Because of his long strides and her determination to get off the planet the others following them soon fell behind. Except for the Knights. They were still close on both their heels. Their prominent presence seemed to spur Rey on to walk even faster. In all honesty he wanted to be rid of them too. And so they didn’t stop on the trek through the narrow canyon and only halted once they had neared the shuttle.

“Darius. Keeva.” Ben barked over the noise of their transport’s engines humming back to life as they approached. The two Knights hastened to his side, their boots unsettling the dust on the cracked stones. “Return to Mustafar and stay there unless I call for you. Your shared task is too important to be interrupted for longer than it already has been.”

They bowed their heads with a simultaneous and solemn “Master.” before detaching from the group and heading for their transport which they must have parked somewhere out of sight.

_Two down, four to go._ Ben thought grimly to himself, after all, Darius and Keeva were the only ones he felt relatively certain he could trust. He hated the need to keep the others closer for now in order to reassert his dominance over them, to anticipate who would betray him first and counter that with a preemptive strike of his own. It would be a bad idea to make a move too soon though. They were simply too gifted and well-trained to allow for such a blunt and blind strategy.

“The rest of you will join the fleet with us. What’s left of it.” He snapped, not turning around to face the other Knights, “I will let Captain Vaughn know to expect you.”

The four Knights accepted his command in a similar way as their companions had done and scattered in different directions.

_Captain Vaughn?_ Rey asked him the moment the Knights were out of earshot even though this was completely superfluous seeing he was the only one who could hear her voice in his head. Something about her being unaware of this and yet obviously wanting to only be heard by him made a grin tug at the corners of his mouth.

He hid it from her with some effort before explaining, _Of the Titan. We need to keep our enemies close, but not too close. Luckily your friends spared two of our battle cruisers instead of just the one._

Her amused huff got drowned for the most part in the hiss of the ramp opening, though that did not lessen the excitement he felt surging through him at that particular sound. In fact, it stayed with him like a pleasant buzz in his ears all the way back to the Dominance. He dismissed Hux along with his contingent of Stormtroopers, ignoring the former’s indignant scowl, and preceded Rey into their quarters not long after.

It should surprise him, astound him even, how good it felt to return to it. To have it just be the two of them in this small safe haven, as false as that sense of security may prove to be. For now, it was theirs, and only theirs. It was baffling how soon he had gotten used to that. Disturbing even how much he relied on it.

Taking unnecessary time to pull off his gloves Ben simply followed Rey with his eyes as she ambled absentmindedly inside, shoulders still tense and hunched a little protectively to perhaps ward off the chill that had creeped into her bones down at that rotten planet; no doubt a courtesy of the Knights and the ghastly burial ritual. But it was done. It was over. They had played their parts. Everyone had.

That last thought was anything but reassuring but he didn’t get the time to either ban it from his mind or dwell on it for Azi zoomed out of the bedroom, carrying a stack of neatly folded towels.

_Not just the two of them then.._

Ben threw his gloves carelessly on the table, let his cloak slip off of him onto the floor and sank down on the sofa as the meddling droid hovered around Rey for the good part of an hour, obviously elated at serving someone who actually listened and even responded to his incessant chatter. Unlike Ben, Rey did seem to appreciate his attempts to introduce her to a varied assortment of food and she willingly sampled anything he had the synthesizer prepare. In all these years Ben had simply requested nutrition bars or Aitha protein drinks to replenish his energy and maintain his health, not bothering to experience flavors he had probably already tried at some point in his life. It had always been a waste of his limited time.  

Rey, on the other hand, seemed glad of the chance to talk of nothing. Although her voice betrayed how tired she was, she was describing Moraband’s landscape with such vivid detail as well as the alien architecture which had long ceased to impress him. Being stuck on Jakku for so long she hadn’t seen much and, no matter how rattled she must be by the experience of today, her wonder at the vastness and diversity of the galaxy apparently couldn’t be dimmed by facing not one but all six of his Knights. Well. They _had_ been his. He probably lost them years ago and it would be a difficult task to remind them who they really served.

So he really shouldn’t be observing the two of them. The droid and the scavenger. He should be thinking of ways to either bind the Knights to him again or cut them loose entirely. He should be carefully planning their take-over of the First Order and the New Era they would have the galaxy enter into. He should be plotting his next move to get rid of the Resistance and anyone known to have associated with it. And yet his thoughts would not be steered in any of those directions. Ben just sat there, wondering how something as simple as food could light up her entire face. The way she took a tentative bite, then froze, then have her eyes widen in surprise at whatever flavor melted on her tongue really shouldn’t be this mesmerizing.

Ben guiltily jerked upright when he realized a fraction too late Azi had not prepared yet another dessert for Rey but something for him. The droid whizzed towards him with a single glass of very bland Daro root tea on a tray. Metal joints whirring as he hovered passed and voice as tinny and mechanical as ever, he bid the two of them goodnight and left but not before casting a disapproving look with his overly large, lamp-like eyes at his non-descript food cubes scattered over his abandoned plate. Ben had barely touched them.

The back of his neck prickled and he averted his gaze from the door closing behind the pesky droid to find Rey staring at him intently. The moment he had turned to look at her, however, she blinked and hurriedly looked down, pretending to be absorbed in examining her hands.

“What is it?”

She shrugged half-heartedly, hair cascading over her slender shoulders.   

“Still hungry?” he tried again, not understanding her reticent silence all of a sudden. She had been talking happily enough with Azi just now.  She shook her head this time but still remained silent. Still wouldn’t look at him.

“Rey?” He didn’t care just how pleading his tone had been. He wanted to know what was going on in her head without relying on the Force to tell him. It didn’t always work like that with her in any case. Especially not after he had taught her to make it an impenetrable fortress. He hadn’t exactly expected to feel as regretful of that as he did now.

She opened her mouth, hesitated, then closed it again. Ben watched her ball her fists in her lap, take a deep breath and finally meet his gaze.

“Who are they?”

He narrowed his eyes, a sense of dread settling in the pit of his stomach.

“I mean who _were_ they..” she amended her question and confirmed his suspicions. Bile instantly rose in his throat.

“Does it matter?” Ben challenged her. He really didn’t want to talk about this, go down that particular road.

Rey crossed her arms over her chest, expression growing stern and determined, “Seeing we’ll have to deal with them at some point, yes, I think it does matter.”

“Will knowing who they were make it any easier to deal with hem?” he asked skeptically.

Rey stared hard at him, her hazel eyes acquiring a steely glimmer, “It won’t make it more difficult if you do tell me.”

Ben dropped his gaze to the Daro root tea in his hands, swirling the golden liquid in an attempt to give himself some time to think.

“Why ask me when you sound like you already know?” he countered testily through clenched teeth.

“I’m asking you because I want to hear your account.” came her curt reply but when he narrowed his eyes even more at her she added with deliberate and slightly exasperated emphasis, “Because I value your side of it more. I just want to know who exactly we’re dealing with. How can we do this together if I don’t know anything about those Knights?”

Ben let out an annoyed sigh and a terse “Fine.” He wasn’t looking forward to raking up the past that was giving him enough trouble as it was despite his burning desire to kill all of it.

She took another deep breath, posture tensing up as she waited for him to start. Problem was he didn’t know exactly where to start. He knew where it had ended. In a way.

“They.. They were students. Like me. We stayed at the temple where my-” he paused, everything in him rebelled at having to say that name.

“Where your uncle trained you to become Jedi.” Rey finished for him, whether out of pity or not the fact that she had made him feel incredibly weak and angry with himself.

“After he betrayed me,” Ben felt his frustration spike at her troubled frown as he phrased it like that but he repressed the urge to act on it and went on, “I offered the others a chance to leave. They were the only ones smart enough to take it.”

 “So the Knights are Jedi then.”

“They _were_. Not that any of that matters now.”

“How can you say that? What happened changed everything.” her voice cracked a little, but not enough to stop her, “When I attacked that Steelpecker I got into her head and I _saw_ it happen. I heard the screams. I could smell the stench of it. I _felt_ the heat of the fire. There were shapes of people inside, trampling each other to get out. And.. ” she swallowed hard, visibly struggling to say the next bit, “And you. I saw _you_. Walking away-”

“If that’s what you saw, it only means you took the bait.” Ben interjected gruffly, blood starting to boil.

“What do you mean?” she pressed, uncertainty creeping into her voice.

“It wasn’t an accident you saw that memory. Tori lured you in to find it right where she wanted you to. Rey..” he leaned forward, elbows on his knees, head tilted to face her and his tone low and serious, “They will stop at nothing to drive a wedge between us. It’s the only chance they got at breaking us. If they can’t break into your mind, they’ll use everything they got in theirs to manipulate and control your thoughts. Turn you against me..”

“It won’t work. I haven’t forgotten who I came here for. Neither should you.” Rey was quick to reprimand him, the fervor with which she spoke made her tremble a little. She shook her head, one hand pinching the bridge of her nose as she momentarily lost herself in her thoughts. He used the opportunity to steady his breathing, get his rising rage and fear under control.

“I believe Master Skywalker was wrong to think you were lost to Snoke. But what I don’t understand is why you had to kill your fellow students for refusing to join you.”

“ _I didn’t_.” he hissed back with indignant vehemence. He had done terrible things he didn’t dare reflect on, but for her to seem so set on condemning him for the one thing he didn’t do...the one thing that had turned him into…into _this_.

“I saw it with my own eyes-”

“You saw it through _her_ eyes. The way she wanted you to see it. To see _me_.”

“Then how did they die?”

Ben almost physically flinched at the memory that question forced to resurface. He had tried so hard to push it away. To forget. Forget what may well have made it impossible for him to ever turn back..

“It was never my intention to kill them. I.. I wanted to convince them to join me. That Skywalker was wrong. That the Jedi were wrong. That both my uncle and the Order would hold them back. Stop them from exploring their full potential. Six did join me and the others.. When I destroyed the temple, when it was burning, the others.. They went inside to save those worthless scrolls filled with lies!” he spat, anger mingling with that helpless sensation of having been unable to make them see, to make _her_ see..

“I didn’t kill them. Their false belief in the Jedi and their sanctimonious texts did that.” he managed to finish in a deceptively calm tone even though he felt anything but calm.

He could tell by the way Rey set her jaw she had a thousand questions left but the next instant her shoulders sagged a little as his palpable reluctance and struggle to answer made her decide against firing them at him all at once. She instead closed her eyes and rubbed her forehead as if her thoughts pressing against the other side of it would dissipate with the motion.

“I still can’t believe they were Jedi and yet the way they talked about those Jedi prisoners being executed..” she eventually spoke out loud, suddenly opening her eyes to meet his gaze again, her ruminations having apparently led her straight back to the Knights of Ren again, “Did you know?”

“I found out the same way you did.”

“Did you _feel_ it?”

“Yes.”

His clipped tone gave her pause. Ben wished he couldn’t see the disappointment gathering in her eyes as clearly as he did.

“You don’t care.” it sounded like something between a question and an allegation. Whichever of the two it was, it made his heart ram against his ribs as if it wanted to break through them and hit her.

“Whatever happened in there has got nothing to do with me. It’s not a part of my past. Not part of yours either.” he tried to reason, even though Rey didn’t reply he knew she was listening, mulling over what he had said, “It’s not a part of our past, _or_ our future. Its time to let go, Rey. Of everything.’”

She shook her head ever so slightly in protest at this, “Ben.. It’s not that simple. We can’t just let go of who we are.”

“And what’s that exactly?” he asked cynically, pulse increasingly growing more rapid.

She hesitated for a split second but then it was replaced by that stubborn conviction and he knew what she was going to answer, “Jedi-

“I’m not a Jedi and you shouldn’t want to be one-”  

“A Sith then?” she overrode him, lifting a single, mocking brow.

“I’m not a Sith.”

“Apparently you’re not a Jedi either.”

“Nor are you. The Force doesn’t make us choose, Rey. The Jedi Order and Sith Religion do that. _Anyone who wants us for our power makes us do that!_ ”

There was a clear, ringing _crack_ and the glass in his hand shattered. In his frustration he must have gripped it too tight. Lukewarm tea gushed over his hand and onto the floor, mingling with the shards glinting accusingly back at him.

Broken glass grinding under her boots Rey stood before him, her knees bumping into the sofa as she bent over a little to take his hand into hers without saying a word. Only when she dabbed at the cuts in his palm with a towel did he feel the sharp stabs of pain.

“I’ll get a med-droid to-” 

“Wait.” she increased her hold on his hand, eyes riddled with inexplicable sparks, “I thought you were going to teach me the ways of the Force.  

“You’re pretty drained already.” Ben felt the need to remind her, trying once more to reclaim his hand but she wouldn’t let him.

“Teach me how to heal you.”

“That would strain you.”  

“I can do this.” she said, louder now. She held his gaze, let out a resigned sigh before confessing honestly, “I need to _know_ I can do this. There’s so much I need to catch up on. How else am I going to learn but by doing it?”

He knew she was right. _Why did she have to be?_ He didn’t want her to have to take care of his wounds. Wounds that were nothing more than a few shallow cuts. Cuts that he probably deserved for allowing his emotions to once again get the better of him.

“Ben?”

His attention instantly reverted back to her and her plea at the sound of his name. _Did she know just how much power she held over him when she called him that?_

He nodded, reluctantly but conceding nonetheless. He slid back, sinking deeper into the sofa to make room for her. Rey kicked off her boots and sat next to him, cross-legged and facing him, all without releasing his hand for a single moment.

“I don’t think it’s in danger of falling off.” he couldn’t help but want to tease her for her disproportionate diligence.

“I know.” she simply said, tone suddenly confident and eyes holding something of a challenge. Ben felt the sides of his neck heat up and nodded now words failed him. He shouldn’t get too distracted if he was to effectively instruct her.  

With some effort Ben guided her through the steps. She was an eager learner. Quick too. And sloppy. Not that she seemed to mind it when he remonstrated her for it. In fact, it made her flash him a half-repressed grin in response. It made him forget all about the stinging sensation in his palm. Then his skin tickled slightly, and sooner than he had expected the cuts had healed.

As if unable to believe her own feat, Rey kept tracing the ghosts of his cuts, fingers crossing and zigzagging across his palm. She wasn’t the only one that got lost in the movement and repetition of it. It was hypnotizing. Worse than the trance-inducing Korriban incense. _A lot worse_.

“What are you doing?” his voice came out a little strangled and with more effort than it should take. ‘What are you doing to _me_?’, he had really wanted to ask. But he wasn’t sure she would have the answer to that. No one else had had this effect on him. No one but her.  

Rey froze, a self-conscious blush creeping up her cheeks. She made to withdraw, drop his hand, but he prevented her from letting him go.

“Don’t stop. It’s soothing.” he meant it. The look in her eyes told him she knew he meant it. It was more than soothing though. It was somehow also the exact opposite. As she resumed to draw circles on his palm every single one of those send powerful tingles up his spine. He responded instinctively as the pads of her fingers strayed to his own and he relished the pressure she returned on them as he tested it out on hers. It was like liquid fire ran through his veins at their silly game. There were no rules. No winning or losing. Just the sheer pleasure of balance between relenting and pushing back.

Acting on impulse Ben caught her hand in his own when his heart started throbbing against his eardrums, too loud to ignore, too feverishly to allow to race out of control. Her eyes widened when she sensed his intention through their bond. Not wanting to give her time to object he brought her hand to his lips and pressed them against the back of it. He didn’t fathom what made him do it. Only that he wanted to. To feel her heated skin against his lips. To feel it searing them at the touch. To fully taste the experience of the most exhilarating burn he had ever suffered from.


	9. Chapter 9

Chapter 9

Her breath hitched. Got sucked out of her lungs. But what good was air against…against _this_? Rey inadvertently trembled, feeling strangely exposed for the tell-tale sign it must be that he was causing it. That every teasing moment his lips grazed her skin was somehow maddening and obviously his doing. She wanted to pull her hand out of his grip and surrender it to him at the same time.

Fully engrossed in what he was doing and seemingly forgetting everything else around him, Ben strayed down the back of her hand, pressing his warm lips against the bridge-like bend of it before turning it gently around in his hand. In danger of really running out of air now, Rey inhaled shakily, a shallow breath that barely made it through her throat tightened with an unfamiliar tenseness that shouldn’t feel this thrilling.

Exerting just enough pressure to be felt, Ben increased his grip around her wrist and stretched out her arm. With the inside bared like this every single one of his fingers were like tantalizing imprints of warmth coinciding with spikes of uncontrollable energy crawling up her spine. He eyed the vulnerable sliver of skin uncovered by her wraps with nothing short of unmasked fascination, thumb rubbing slow circles against it that seemingly only took him deeper into his reverie.   

Rey grasped the fabric of her leggings in her free hand, fingers digging into it in an attempt to distract herself from the erratic beating of her heart at his touch. She swallowed. _Hard_. Apparently an audible enough gulp to have Ben come to his senses.

He angled his head to face her, tentatively as if expecting to be scolded but still willing to take the risk by not giving up her hand and his possession of it just yet.

_Do you want me to stop?_

The words he projected in her head took a moment to reach her through the strange fogginess that had pushed all thoughts to the side. What was she supposed to say to that? It had almost sounded more like pleading for her permission to continue than an offer to stop. Or was that just her imagination? It scared her just how much she felt so incredibly tempted to give in. To let him continue.  

She was glad he had at least asked her that impossible question telepathically because she didn’t trust her own voice to come out, it seemed caught in the deep recesses of her constricted throat. Rey could only hope that he couldn’t hear her heart thumping as it did, it pounded against her eardrums, practically drowning out all other sounds.

_I don’t know.._ Startled and confused at the same time by her own unfiltered honesty, she hesitated a moment longer about reclaiming her hand, the other one still clutching her leggings. Ben’s eyes acquired an unmistakable… _hunger_. She couldn’t think of another word. She couldn’t _think_. Period. _Why had she never really noticed those tiny specks of gold glinting from among those puddles of dark, velvety brown..?_

That simple but baffling realization sparked something in her core that made her shiver again. Made her lose her courage too.

“Maybe we should get some rest.” she suggested a little too quickly, tongue almost tripping over the words and the way her chest constricted with longing utterly contradicting that request.

His expression didn’t falter, eyes simply shooting left and right with an increased intensity as he searched hers as if gauging how much the suggestion was also a rejection. She wanted to assure him it wasn’t. Shout it. But no sound came out. The only thing she could do was to trust her expression to convey it for her. For her face to be the open book she feared it usually was. Especially to him.

“We should.” he finally agreed, voice a low, disappointed rumble, “Only a handful of hours left on this ship.”

“You’re leaving?” her tone of surprise and apprehension must have given her away if nothing else already had, effectively chasing away that lingering disappointment in the taut lines of his face. Heart starting to beat louder again, Rey was but all too aware of the fact that she hadn’t been honest at all when she had said she didn’t know and the gleam brightening the halo around his dark eyes told her he very likely did too now.

“ _We_ are.” Ben corrected, stoic tone not succeeding on purpose in leaving out a smugness that was as riling as it was  contagious.

“We’ll be moving to the planet of Chandrila.” he forestalled her next question, making to go on to explain so she didn’t have to admit that the name didn’t ring any bells when it probably should. _Jakku really was pretty much nowhere_ , she thought a little bitterly, _just like most of the galaxy didn’t know much about that sandy, dust ball, so did those trapped on it know little about the vast expansion of solar systems far from its own, tucked away little corner among the stars_.

His hand cupping hers from below made her stir, attention instantly reverting back to him again. “For some time Chandrila was the political heart of the New Republic. The galactic senate ruled from the capital of Hanna City.” It was harder than she would ever care to admit to focus on what he was saying let alone glean any possible implications when he toyed with her fingers as he spoke; curling then uncurling both their fingers, causing possibly every fiber in her body to tingle all at once.

“The First Order took over only a few cycles ago so the population has not yet been fully… _convinced_ that it rightfully belongs to us. Dissenters have recently become more overt in their protests now that the rumor of the Supreme Leader’s death has been confirmed. It’s vital we crush this fledgling unrest. After losing the Supremacy and a third of our fleet we must prevent any thought of a resurgence now more than ever. Our seat of power can’t be undermined. Chandrila must be made an example of the peace the First Order will bring.”

Rey was almost glad for the distraction of his finger pads aligning with her knuckles and then brushing the indents between them. His image of peace sounded a lot like warmongering and repression to her. It was the kind of tyranny the Resistance fought against. _She_ fought against.

“How are you going to deal with the protesters?” she asked, apprehension spreading through her.

“It’s not something you’ll have to deal with, I will lead the Knights myself to take care of them.”

“Take care of them in what way?” Rey pressed, tone clear and demanding.

“Imprisonment.” he replied coolly, index finger tapping a random rhythm against the joint of hers as if he too didn’t want to think too deeply on that inevitable result. But imprisonment could still encompass a wide range of misery, from torture to execution. Her troubled expression made him abandon his play with her slack, reluctant digits.

“We can’t safe everyone, Rey. Not if they threaten the stability we’re trying to create for the benefit of the entire galaxy.”

“I know.” she said back with a stubbornness that he didn’t fail to miss, “Doesn’t mean I don’t wish we could.”

“I know.” he deliberately echoed her own words, offering assurance more than annoyance, “I’ll make sure their punishment won’t be excessive if that’s what it takes to put your mind at rest.”

“We’re about to rule a galaxy, what could possibly put my mind at rest?” Rey couldn’t help but quip. Ben’s mouth curved into a half-grin, pride and what she could swear was a similar trepidation mingling in the short-lived movement.

“There’s something else.. What are you not telling me?” Rey added, sensing a sudden lapse through their Force connection, like instead of building a wall or pushing her out Ben had simply loosened that thread between them in the hopes of her not noticing. She _had_. He stopped playing with her fingers again, simply enveloping her hand with his larger one. 

“Ben?”

He gave a grumbling hum that scraped the back of his throat, pouted his lips slightly as he fought whatever ghost from the past that made him this unwilling to admit she was right. That he was keeping something from her. He folded her hand into a ball within his own, holding on tight as if to anchor himself as he finally spoke, “Chandrila also happens to be where I was born.”

“You were born there? We’re going to your home?” Rey responded, rushed on by excitement and curiosity which only seem to bristle him.  

“You don’t want to go back.” she probed cautiously.

“We have no choice but to go there.” came his non-committal, matter of fact answer. His tone was void of emotion, not because he didn’t feel any, but because he felt too much of it. She could feel it threaten to spill over the brim of their bond.   

“Why?”

“Because it’s the one place where we can finally become who we were meant to be.” his almost enigmatic conviction made her instantly furrow her brows, prompting him to add with even more fervor that he seemed to greedily latch onto to push back that wave of unwanted emotions, “We can’t delay, leave a vacuum of power for someone else to step into. It’s time to ascend the throne and where better but at the former center of power of our defeated enemy.”

Rey pulled back her hand, suddenly filled with fear by the enormity of that prospect; of the fact that the moment had come  already, so _soon_. Overwhelming wasn’t a word that would be able to cover how it made her feel. No word would.

She bit her lower lip, the sharp but short sting of pain doing little to take her mind of that looming reality. Ben looked at her intently, expecting her to protest, to argue, but there was no point in debating this. Rey knew he was right. Despite their different ideas, despite the fact that hers at least hadn’t even been fully formed yet, this was the one step, no matter how enormous and daunting it was, that they needed to take. Together. To be in the position to change things. The more she reflected on it, on the haziness of the future they would shape, the more she wanted something comforting to be sure of instead of to doubt. In this moment, with that familiar panic on the verge of taking over, she could only think of one, silly thing.

“Will Azi come with us?”

That made Ben huff in genuine amusement, his stern but concerned scowl dissolving with it, “That droid has a tendency to ignore my orders when they don’t suit him so I doubt he’ll stay here even if I told him to. Besides, he’s obviously taken a liking to you so I wouldn’t be surprised if he bursts through that door any second to help you pack.”

“That shouldn’t take too long. Never had that much to begin with.” a small smile pulled at her lips, not just at the ironic truth of that but also at the bizarre realization that his promise to bring Azi along somehow made her heart that bit lighter.

“How much longer until we get there?” she looked up at Ben again, not even sure if she really wanted to know.

“Six, seven hours.” he guessed absentmindedly, she couldn’t directly decipher his thoughts or place the mix of feelings rolling towards her like waves until she caught the hint of wanting to pick up where they had left off like fitful, sizzling sparks practically shooting from his eyes. Rey felt her face grow hot, felt that same heat pool in her core. She wasn’t sure she could afford to explore where exactly that would lead them.

“It’s probably best we use that time to get what rest we can..” Ben looked, _felt_ , too restless to really mean it. She nodded, masking her own sense of unfulfilled desire by settling herself on the sofa, trying very hard not to glance in his direction as he did the same. Despite that precaution, for it felt like one, it took her  a lot longer to get her breathing to become deep and calm, for her heart to stop throbbing with such _kriffing_ irregular beats against her ribs that they seemed ready to shatter with the next.


	10. Chapter 10

Chapter 10

He hadn’t really slept. It felt like he had merely pressed his eyes tight shut and wasted hours he could have been resting. _Should_ have rested. Instead he had hovered uncomfortably between that hazy state of almost-dreams and half-awareness. Something under his skin kept crawling just below its surface. Something that made him feverish. Something that somehow but undeniably promised more. Something he probably shouldn’t be feeling at all but it was more invasive, so much more all-consuming than the anger and fear that he used to relied on. _Stars_. What was she doing to him..!

Ben pulled the hood of his cloak over his head, the fabric rough instead of refined with the leather of his gloves preventing him from directly touching it. The task ahead was weaving a similar, thin but dividing layer around him. _Between_ himself and Rey. His instinctual detachment from everything and everyone around him kicking in at the prospect of what he had to do. The mask of Kylo Ren slipping but all too easily back into place even though he now knew it wouldn’t be enough to shield him from all those memories linked to this place. Memories he didn’t want to revisit; didn’t want to have them belong to him anymore. Their tentative threat of materializing alone now he was back after such a long time made him inwardly shudder and increase the density of the Force around him in a desperate attempt to ward them off.

With a careless flick of two of his fingers Ben sent Marrek and Tori to the other two transports waiting for them, glad to be rid of their looming company at his side as they glided towards them like malevolent shadows among the impeccable white of the Stormtrooper’s armor. He made for one of the other assault landers which were scattered around the vast courtyard and made for a striking contrast with the curved and elegant architecture all around; crude crates of steel that happened to be able to fly amidst graceful statues with serene but hollow looks in their stony eyes.

The heavy thuds of his boots reverberated through the ramp, rattling against his soles as Ben got onboard, the hem of his cloak grazing the cold grid of steel as he turned around to survey the courtyard one last time. Rey hadn’t moved a muscle, just stood there on the exact spot where he had branched off in a different direction, away from the palace gates swung graciously open to receive them. He knew she wouldn’t enter their new home until he had truly set off on the mission that was so close to splitting them into two; until he was truly out of sight and she really had no other choice but to go inside and probably wait restlessly for him to come back.

Those snakes wreathing under his skin stirred again as their eyes locked, even over this distance he felt the intensity that must be shining through those brown orbs, lending them that enticing amber sheen. A pleasant buzz wriggled its way between his finger pads and the inside of his leather gloves, as if the sudden surge of energy had nowhere else to go now he had summoned it by vividly recalling how they had explored hers.   

As maddening as the sensation was, all the more now it was necessary for him to leave without her, Ben clung to it with a despair fueled by that abys always before him. He felt the Dark Side hook its claws into him, claiming him for its own, reminding him he had not escaped, that he still needed it. And a part of him did. It gave him power. Power he needed to do this. To stamp out any spark of resistance here on Chandrila. If he allowed it to kindle a flame and for that flame to turn into a blaze, then more harm would come to both sides. In the end fire didn’t distinguish between supposed enemy or ally, it consumed everything and everyone in its destructive path. _In that it wasn’t unlike the First Order_ , Ben thought grimly, _but at least the latter had a firm grip of the path it would take_.

Despite his own defiance against the separation, however brief it would be, Ben could feel her defiance ebbing away and a grumbling resignation take its place as he held her gaze across the courtyard.

_Stay inside._

He had probably sounded too forceful, authoritative and distant even, but he didn’t want to take unnecessary risks.  Surrounded by Stormtroopers, Palace Guards and with the Dominance a vigilant specter in the sky above she was farther away from danger than he was about to be.

_Be safe_.

Her sincerity cut him to the core. She meant that. She was worried. About _him_. It was confusing and elating at the same time. It made him scared too. Did she really believe he could change? Be different from…from _this_? Why didn’t he believe that? The venom rapidly coursing through his veins as the Dark Side increased his hold on him ironically provided him with the answer. Perhaps he would always need both it and her to keep the ghosts that hunted him day and night at bay. It was so much worse being back here..

Balling his hands into fists he watched her as the ramp closed, sealing with a hiss inches from his face. Even when he could no longer see her with his eyes her presence lingered but became more and more shapeless until it lost almost all solidity as they took to the air and sped away. The lander shook and shuddered, landing what seemed the next moment with its steel skeleton grinding and groaning. As sturdy as they were the landers weren’t designed with maneuverability in mind. All they had to do was deliver troops effectively and quickly in impenetrable bunkers down to the surface. Glaring red light flashed next to him, painting his vision intermittently in the same color than back to the dull gray of the lander’s interior.

Impatience growing at the slow process Ben raised one hand, unclenching it and sending out a burst of the Force with it as he did. Steel distorting at the impact it fell down with a heavy grunt, it’s edges shattering the street below. It was nothing more than an impromptu and temporary outlet for the familiar rage rising more and more as he drew on the Dark side in equal measure. He would not succumb to the pain this planet held for him. _Still_..

He strode forward, wordlessly dispatching one unit of Stormtroopers to fan out and inspect the countless alleyways running from the Senate Plaza while the other broke into a jog to keep up with him. They marched across the square as smaller transports flew passed overhead, the drone of their engines pressing against his eardrums and yet he barely heard them; his unrest throbbed harder against the other side. He hated being back. Hated being here. Every building, every ivy-infested structure, every pattern running through lustrous marble and every sign bearing names he remembered with utter clarity when  he should have erased it, _all_ of it, seemed to challenge him. Unhinged the faltering control from his grasp. There were memories everywhere. Invading, stabbing, piercing, plaguing, infiltrating, _taunting_. And then they reached the Senate House. A grand structure of perfect symmetry, heaven-reaching spires, and _lies_.

The sight was enough to finally have those memories banging against the gate to his mind break through. Ben stood rigid in the building’s imposing shadow as if anchoring himself against the strong current of his past threatening to drag him away, drown him. His transfixed gaze didn’t waver when the sounds of civilians being herded onto the Plaza drifted over and the shouts of protests grew steadily louder before the butt of a weapon silenced whoever had been foolish enough to raise their voices and resist their inevitable capture. The raids led by Marrek and Tori had been swift and effective. Good. It meant he would be able to return to the palace soon. There might be even more memories lurking and poised to strike there, but he would rather take those on when it meant he could at least be sure they were the only threat now that they would succeed in making an example of these traitors.

It took every ounce of self-control to press back against that wave of images and sounds still washing over him as Ben turned around at the approach of one of the officers.

“Sir, we’ve secured the renegades.”

Her voice sounded scrambled through the overly large helmet.

“All of them?”

The officer cast a nervous glance over her shoulder at the group of people cowering on their knees, hands either half raised in the air or placed protectively on the back of their heads as Stormtroopers stood in a crescent shape around them, blasters aimed and ready. It was an all too familiar sight. And yet, it was like he had never really seen it before. Like his vision had somehow shifted and where he had felt so utterly sure of what to do before, he now hesitated.

“Based on the intelligence we received it should be all of the ringleaders, sir.”

Ben ground his teeth, once more riled by the strategy Hux had decided on without consulting him. In the General’s logic the threat of a rebellion was most effectively dealt with by cutting off its head; without leaders their followers would fall apart like sand. They would be just as difficult to trace as sand too.

“Sir?”

Ben stirred at the officer’s questioning tone, wishing he still had his own mask to hide his unease when Tori and Marrek’s glinted a malicious silver in the waning sun when they walked over to flank him in what he felt deep down to his bones wasn’t anything akin to loyalty. He took a step closer, pacing in front of the group of prisoners, most of them met his gaze with undisguised contempt. It made the Force spike around him angrily in response.

“Prepare to process them. The Dominance will have more than enough prison cells to contain them.” He barked out his orders, at least determined to deliberately go against Hux’s plan in this. Keeping these traitors here would only tempt the local population favorable to their cause to demand their release or attempt to break them out. Neither scenario was conducive to reasserting their position here.

“Very well, sir.”

The officer slapped her blaster to her armor in salute then pivoted around to organize the transport of the prisoners, the one precisely behind her slowly and tremblingly raising to his feet now he directly faced his captor, eyes growing large as they fixed on him.

Recognition hit Ben like a blaster bolt to the chest, his body tensed up and he sucked in a breath, unwillingly removing any remaining doubt the frail, white-haired man had still had.

“It’s you.. _You_..” he cried out, indignation mingling with utter horror and he shook his head, refusing to believe it, “No.. It can’t be.. Not.. Not Ben So-”

The man’s voice morphed into a gurgling choke, hands instinctively clawing at his neck to break the invisible vines constricting it. Ben’s own breath was still caught in his throat as he increased the hold, wanting the Dark Side to take over, to help him, to end the pain that had sunk its sharp, unforgiving talons into his flesh as he remembered all those times he had seen that face. He cracked the man’s skull open, a crazed urge to rip every memory he had of him out of his mind except this one, the one in which he wasn’t that pathetic, forlorn child anymore. He _wasn’t_. That boy sitting in the back of the speeder with this man piloting it every trip he made through this accursed city was gone. That boy hoping his mother would be there sitting next to him instead of always being swallowed up by that maze of a Senate House to devote her life to diplomacy and politics was gone too. Maybe it had been easier that way to forget she had a son when he reminded her of the husband that had never understood his connection to the Force and ran away from it. From _them_.

A grating rasp brought him back to the present. The man was struggling to refill his lungs with air, Ben could feel them burning, could feel the blood pounding against his temples, how life drained from him with every second. This man had seen the loneliness in him. He could not forgive him for that. For reminding him. He was different now. He was powerful. His family no longer mattered to him. That same burning hatred that had woken up from its slumber the moment he had looked down on the blue-green planet from its crystal clear orbit swelled, whirled, _raged_.. It would be so easy to snap his neck. To end this. All of this. But would it be over if he did..?

The man sputtered, veins sticking out like purple cables among his ragged wrinkles as his strength was so close to leaving him forever. The prisoners called out in panic, despair. They hadn’t yet realized what would have to happen. What Ben couldn’t stop from happening. He knew. The man. The pilot. He was both glad and ashamed that at least he had forgotten the name belonging to the face, to the pitying expression it adopted every time he drove him around, always on his own.

That last, crumbling vestige of control burst apart. The Dark Side seized it greedily. He obeyed. Allowed the hatred to fuel his grip on the dying man. He Force summoned him closer, his other hand reaching for the lightsaber on his belt. It ignited with a feral crackle. _He wasn’t alone anymore_. The red, flickering glow cast his grizzled beard in a strange relief. _It’s not too late_. The echo of her voice drowned in the voracious hum of his weapon. _You’re not alone_. The blade skewered the man as he collided with Ben. He let out a strangled gasp at the sudden release of pain. His green eyes narrowing but conveying those same words. Her words. _You’re not alone_. He only now realized they always had. With every silent look he had cast over his shoulder at him, both hands tight around the steering wheel. He had tried to tell him that with every nod and lifting of his cap in greeting. The man slumped against his chest, white hair sprawled like snow on his black clothes.

Ben stood, unmoving, his breath ragged as shiver after shiver trickled down his spine. The saber vanished, as always leaving a ringing silence in its wake. Freed, the man’s lifeless body slid down, hitting the Plaza with a dull crack. There were outcries of shock. Disbelief. Anger. Grief.

“Take them away. Him too.” Ben bit out, despising the rawness evident in his voice. He had reveled in the outburst of savage violence. He had felt something uncomfortably close to regret. And he felt sick because of it. All of it. He turned away from the Stormtroopers and his two Knights to hide the gagging sensation he could only just repress. He didn’t want to have to look at those huddled, trembling shapes that were being pushed and shoved to the nearest transport like cattle brought to slaughter. He was only half aware of both Tori and Marrek overseeing all of it, embarking the transport with the prisoners too. 

Ben hardly knew how he had gotten back to the Palace after that. He assumed the same lander had taken him there. The courtyard was crawling with activity. Stormtroopers were busy fortifying the Royal abode. Shuttles were taking off or landing. Palace workers were undergoing scrutinizing security checks. He barely acknowledged the other two Knights standing guard next to the gate and strode inside, body somehow aching with what had happened and close to collapsing with every step he took. Years of habit took him to the right wing, to a room with delicate and subtle decorations carved in the walls.

He felt so broken it made him sink to his knees. His arms hung limply at his side, hands palm outward as if in surrender slightly dragging over the cold marble that made up this lavish, immaculate, deceitful, _accursed_ Palace. His prison. His old home.. Their new one.. The discrepancy seemed impossible to bridge.

Ben had reached out to her before he could stop himself, his longing winning out over his wariness, his _revolt_ to be seen like this.

The string between them instantly materialized, he felt Rey respond to his desperate tug. A door was thrown open somewhere deeper inside the Palace’s interior. Footsteps and their echoes coming closer. He shouldn’t have called out to her. _She would despise him_..

                                                                                           (---)

The beacon emitted a faint blue pulse as it lay in her palm. It had been dormant all this time. Rey kept checking, like she had done every day. And every time she both hoped for and dreaded a change in that dull glow. But it remained the same regardless of her frustration. Of her _relief_. They weren’t looking for her. As much as that saddened her it also meant they were safe from the danger that inevitably entailed. Of course it also very much meant that they were in all likelihood still stuck on Crait with the First Order cruiser blocking their escape. But what if the beacon remained silent because something had happened? To Leia? To all of them? Had the General ordered their destruction behind their backs..?

Rey swiveled around at a sudden sound behind her, nearly knocking the pile of linen from Azi’s hold. She apologized hurriedly, helping to balance the precariously wobbling mountain of fabric.

“Not to worry, mistress Rey. I am programmed for the inconvenience of human’s unpredictability of movements.” the droid replied, head cocked so his bulbous, yellow eyes could look at her around the linen. “Perhaps your lack of control over your limbs is an indication of overexertion. You must simply be tired. It is been such a long day with all the preparations of moving and arranging everything here. Why don’t you lie down? Rest a bit? I will make sure you are not to be disturbed.”

Azi waited for her belated nod, her thoughts whirling around in her head preventing her from truly hearing all he had said. Mimicking her nod with one of his own that made his neck joints whirr like it always did he zoomed off, leaving her alone in the spacious room with nothing for company but exquisite furniture and incomprehensible but fascinating carved figures adorning the walls.

The Palace was, unsurprisingly, very different from the Dominance. She had several rooms to herself now. Empty rooms. Rooms she didn’t need. Rooms she didn’t _want_. As cramped and sparsely furnished as their quarters aboard the cruiser had been she knew she preferred it to this. Everything about this lofty Palace felt hollow. It magnified every small sound into horrible echoes. She thought she could even hear her own heart bouncing off the cold walls back at her.

She was worried sick. It had been a couple of hours already. What was taking so long? General Hux had informed them there were only minor disturbances. She hadn’t liked staying behind. More than that, she hated waiting. She had fooled herself for more than half her lifetime to wait. Survive and wait. _And for what_?  

Swallowing down the hurt threatening to well up inside of her, she balled her fist around the beacon and crossed the large room to stand in front of the tall, oval windows. Her breath caused the glass to be alternately foggy then clear again. She looked out over the city, all ivory and towers between which arched bridges spanned over a myriad of streets and squares.

One sun was sinking down to the horizon, its light meager and far away. It was so much smaller than Jakku’s. And less glaring and biting too. Two indigo moons gave chase, appearing higher up in the gray sky. As far as she could see the streets were more or less deserted. Sometimes she could just discern a human form hurrying to an unseen destination. Even from inside Rey could feel the thickness of the atmosphere. The very air was tight with tension. Now and then shuttles flew over, searchlights switching on one by one as the sky gradually darkened. The silence inside was maddening.

That wasn’t the only silence that was growing on her nerves. From the moment that Ben had left, his Force signature had almost disappeared. She had followed some officer inside, leaving the two Knights at the gate with an absentminded command, and had spent nearly every second after trying to find him. Find the cord between them. Trace it all the way to where he was. It had been of no use. It was like he was moving in and out of a thick mist and she only managed to see a faint silhouette flitting in and out of sight. No matter how she pulled at the thread connecting them either his end or hers always slipped out of her grasp every time she thought she had found it. She’d pull. Nothing-

Rey reached out in reflex, hands flat against the glass to steady herself when Ben presence returned in full force and with it a torrent of unrest. Turbulence. _Conflict_. It was so overwhelming that she wavered on the spot, chest heaving with short, shallow breaths. She closed her eyes, focusing on the Force around her, finding the thread instantly this time. She pulled it taut. It was only a short distance between them. He was close.

She rushed through the vast Palace, through one room, then the next. When she pushed open the next door she froze on the threshold. _Ben_..

He was kneeling down on both knees with his shoulders hunched as if in defeat. His cloak lay fanned out around him, a mesmerizing halo of dark fabric and folds that framed the crown of his head. Staring at his opened, empty hands that was all she could see of him.

“Ben?” she hastened over, stopping inches away from him. He hadn’t moved. Didn’t look up.

Rey lifted a hand, fingers tentatively stretching out to catch the curtain of black strands that hid most of his face. She brushed them away as gently as she could, making them cling to his temples and behind his ears. He stirred a little at that. But he remained just as silent. There was both Light and Dark energy rolling off him in waves. She couldn’t tell which was smothering which. That scared her.

“Ben..”

Nothing. She wasn’t even sure he had heard her. His bottom lip trembled and he winced. She didn’t understand. And then she felt the gap growing between them. It was him. He was raising up a wall between them. Not to protect himself. To protect _her_.

“Don’t do this.” was all Rey managed to say. Feeling more helpless by the second she traced his jawline with her fingers as if to reassure herself of his tangible presence, two of them ending up cradling his chin. She lifted it. Slowly. He didn’t stop her. He blinked. Eyes darting away from hers despite his head tilted up towards her until she nudged him through their bond, a little assurance to tell him not to be afraid. His dark eyes finally shot upwards. He looked haunted. Sorrowful. _Exhausted_..

“What happened-” 

“You were right.” he bit out, she could feel his jaw clench under her own skin. “Rey.. I still _am_.”

She recognized that same challenging tone that held such doubt. Such regret. It was how he had sounded when he hadn’t retorted against her hateful claim that he was a monster. When he had told her that he was..

“What if staying with me will destroy you? Maybe you should’ve killed me when you had the chance.” Ben’s voice shattered, the deep brown of his eyes hardened and glazed at the same time.

“Don’t say that.”

“It’s true.”

“Not to me.” Rey leaned forward, surrendering to the push and pull that always flowed around them. Not resisting the stronger current for once she lowered her head even more, angling it so their noses wouldn’t bump into each other, her lips hovering near his. She closed her eyes, feeling her lips graze his as she whispered, “Tell me how to help you. _Please_..”

His breath tickled her chin, soft puffs of the same air that she felt cut off from and that shortened, nearly stopped when their lips grazed again. Withdrew. Tentatively touched again.

Neither of them had heard the approaching, brisk footsteps before the door had already creaked open and someone entered. Datapad held in one hand, the other bend around his back, General Hux stiffened, hellishly blue eyes widened and alert. Then they narrowed for a split second as a snarl flashed across his pale face.


	11. Chapter 11

**A/N: Thanks for all the love folks, really appreciate all the kudos, bookmarks & comments! 333**

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Chapter 11

The mere hint of the taste of her lips already haunting his own, he felt the immense loss of her closeness before he sensed there was someone else there with them. Rey had taken a hurried step back, hand withdrawing from his face with a light, unintended caress that made him stagger even more as he got to his feet.  

“Forgive me, Emperor. Empress.” Hux inclined his head with a minimal amount of movement at the both of them in turn, tone unmistakably intrigued instead of apologetic. The General’s gaze moved back and forth between them in the tense silence that followed his feigned regret, before it fixed solely and scrutinizingly on him.

“I wasn’t expecting to find you here, but it seems I overestimated my memory for maps. I did not think I had entered the Royal Wing just yet. Clearly I was mistaken.”

“Clearly.” Ben hissed back, he felt close to swaying where he stood but that was barely enough to keep him from lashing out, from wiping the superior expression off of Hux’s face. Something that did not go unnoticed.

Hux’s eyes narrowed, chin lifting up haughtily, “Has something happened? That mission perhaps?”

“It’s nothing.” Ben growled at the demanding enquiry, inwardly cursing his tired body and the overwhelming sensations of anger, fear, and longing still coursing through it. Rey wasn’t faring that much better, he realized, the Force might be fluctuating wildly around him, her signature was very much like a storm too.   

“Only, it seems you look… _affected_.” Hux went on, the datapad in his hands tilting down now his attention had been caught by something more worthy of it, “You can’t possibly find fault with our newly acquired accommodations? I must admit to being surprised if you are. After all,” he paused just long enough to have the corner of his mouth curl up as if in preliminary triumph, “I would’ve thought it to be nothing short of a happy reunion with Chandrila being your home planet. It _is_ where you were born, is it not?”

Ben was too dazed by what he had said to utter a sound. He felt paralyzed. Exposed. How did he know? Not a lot of people did. He had made sure of that. Erased every trace leading back to who he had been. Who he was struggling to become again. And yet he _knew_..

“If you don’t have anything to offer other than insolent observation, General, I suggest you leave.” Rey had taken a step forward, Ben could feel her tremble with ire through their bond. Hux looked affronted and amused at the same time.

“As a matter of fact I do.” he tapped the datapad with his long fingers, eyes flitting down to it and continuing without looking away from it though it was but all too clear that the calculating flash in his eyes had nothing to do with what he found there.

“I came to deliver my report. The Dominance has received the prisoners, they’re being interrogated as we speak. We have also completed securing the Palace. No one gets in or out without us knowing about it. And only with your express permission, of course. In fact, it would seem congratulations are in order, for the Capital City of Hanna appears very much under our control. In short, despite the earlier… _scuffle_ , I see no reason to delay or reschedule the ceremony. The First Order cannot possibly continue like this, with a throne unoccupied..” he looked up, disdain clear in his expression, swiftly gainsaid as the watery blue of his irises acquired a menacing glint, “But more than that, perhaps, you must be eager to show your union to the rest of the galaxy.” 

The silence in the wake of his words rang through the room. It was deafening. It was _telling_.

“Ah.. I fear I must beg for your forgiveness once more.” Hux resumed, head tilted as if in actual embarrassment, “It would seem I not only disturbed you unannounced, I see now that I also spoke too hastily-”

“Leave us.” Ben spat, rounding on him, his voice gravelly and raw. He had to support himself against Rey as he said it when a wave of hate tipped his precarious balance that only just kept him standing. It was a subtle gesture, no more than her lithe hand curved around his elbow, but the General didn’t miss it.

He made to incline his head and retreat politely but then abruptly, _deliberately_ , froze in his movement, an almost convincing frown of concern contracting his brows, “With the upcoming ceremony perhaps extra security is in order. Would you allow me to assign elite troopers to guard you-”

Ben cut him off with an impatient and furious “No.”, blood boiling more with every second this man lingered. That his sly accusations seeped like poison into his head.   

“But surely in your current… _conditi_ -”

Hux never finished his protest. He slammed sideways into the wall as Ben flung out his arm, putting every ounce of anger into the violent efflux of the Force as he did. He felt Rey’s fingers dig into his elbow, anchoring him to the spot. Stopping him from lashing out again. And again. And again. Like he wanted to. But he didn’t. He remained where he was. Breathing heavily and his whole body trembling with his repressed rage.    

Blood many shades a darker red than his disheveled hair trickled from Hux’s lower lip as he raised himself up. He tottered on his feet then mustered the discipline he needed to fully straighten and stand still again as if nothing had happened. He dusted off his creaseless uniform and wiped his face clear off a few stray drops of blood, eyes never leaving Ben’s face. He returned the glare with equal if not surpassing intensity.

“For your own sake I suggest you don’t doubt my strength again.. _General_.”

“C-Certainly, Emperor.” jaw taut Hux’s nostrils flared with his labored breath, every sharp line in his face enhancing the livid flash in his eyes. Then he swallowed hard and regained a surprising amount of his dignity and usual formality, “If you will excuse me now. Empress.” he sent Rey a restrained bow, turned about and marched out, balled fists behind his back and great coat flapping against his heels.

His hard, echoing footsteps had all but died away when they both finally stirred again. Rey tugged at his arm, tunic grasped in her fingers but he could not respond. Could not bear facing her. He uncurled her fingers without a word, loosening their grip just enough so he could escape it. 

“Ben-”

“Not now.”

The pang of hurt reverberated through his own chest, making him stop in his tracks on the threshold, hand grabbing a hold of the frame to maintain his balance. Gaze cast down he slowly turned back to her, wanting to somehow make up for his dismissive tone.

“Please.”  

At her silence he looked up but he couldn’t read her expression. It was blank and a mix of contradicting emotions all in one. The turmoil of all that had happened today, maybe all that had happened since she joined him, caused the Force to be a restless current again that, instead of sweeping him, _them_ , with it, had now reached the opposite, numbing effect.

Rey blinked, lashes lightly brushing her cheekbones in rapid succession that prompted her to turn her back towards him and hide her face. But she didn’t move. Didn’t leave. Just stood there. Head lowered and arms cradling her stomach.

The impulse to close the distance between them, the distance _he_ had created, was too strong to resist. Ben was behind her in a few, hastened strides. He hesitated as her breath stalled, shoulders tensing a little at his proximity. Then he threw all caution to the wind and enveloped her with his arms, with _all_ of him, and held her as close to his body as he could and even that didn’t feel close enough.

His cloak swaying around both their ankles he lowered his head so her hair pricked his lips, “I’m grateful you’re here. With me. Whatever happens. Don’t forget that.”

He pressed a kiss against the crown of her head, the warmth of her skull touching his lips and the silkiness of her hair instantly lending them a coolness again. She shivered in his hold. He could feel her lungs swell as she took a sharp breath, then deflate again as a stifled puff of air stumbled out of her mouth.

He didn’t want to move away. He wasn’t sure if she wanted him to. She didn’t make any inclination to push him away. To leave. For a moment he simply reveled in their reestablished closeness, studying the coppery tint that weaved like a sheen through those thin strands. He had barely planted a second kiss on the same spot when her breath jarred in her throat and she stirred.

Ben shifted his hold so as not to keep her trapped, a painful stab going through him at the coming rejection. To his surprise Rey didn’t free herself. Instead she deftly turned around in his arms, wrapped her own around his torso and pressed herself flush against his chest. It seemed it was his turn to run out of air. To simply _forget_ to breathe. His heart beat erratically against hers, setting up a twin rhythm between them. He just held her, her smaller form fitting perfectly against him.

She eventually emitted a muffled grumble before she reluctantly leaned back a little, head tilted so her chin instead of her cheek rested against his chest.

“You look tired..” he remarked, realizing he must have sounded as he felt, teasing and worried at the same time. His hands clasped tighter in the small of her back to keep her in place as she leaned back more to look up at him, the palms of her hands shifting in response to press flat against the lower ridge of his shoulder blades. 

“How about we find ourselves a sofa?” she suggested, sparking something light and quick to travel through him; an evasive bolt of electricity which he couldn’t get under control. A warning. Of a kind. One that he should probably heed but would be difficult to obey. 

Avoiding her hazel eyes on purpose for they would tempt him beyond her intention, Ben gave the room, the whole Palace, a nonchalant and all-encompassing side-flick with his chin, “Take your pick.”

 (…)

That morning it was the first time she woke before him. Their hands had crawled closer during their sleep and her head had sunk lower on his shoulder. She lifted it, slightly groggy and mind still sluggish as it transitioned between dreams and waking. Ben shifted a little, his head dipping now it lost the support of hers, making his black hair fall in front of his face and obscure his features. But he didn’t wake up.

Rey didn’t know what she felt. What to think. What to do now something between them seemed to change. _Had_ changed. But it was all too new and unfamiliar to understand. Watching him sleep, watching his chest rising and falling as a sense of peace relaxed the lines of his face, softening the ghosts of scars still marking it, she felt so purposeful and confused at the same time. 

She was still surviving. Like she always had. Falling into that treacherous pace of taking it day by day. It was all she could do. For now. It wouldn’t be enough. Not in the long run. But for now, just for now, she pushed back her uncertainty of what the future would bring and simply watched Ben sleep.

She had no idea how long she hovered between giving in to the impulse that spurred her on and reigning it in just in time before she could act on it. She wanted to take his face in her hands, trace his jawline on either side. But she didn’t it. She wanted to brush his hair behind his ears, feel it slip between her fingers. But she didn’t. She wanted to lay down and nestle her head on his shoulder again and go back to sleep. But she didn’t. She couldn’t. _Shouldn’t_?

The sliver of doubt creeping in slyly steered her thoughts away from his sleeping form until the daunting prospect of the ceremony filled every inch of her. This evening they would officially take Snoke’s place as leaders of the First Order. It sounded so unreal as she repeated that sentence to herself over and over again. If word reached the resistance, if they were still _alive_ , then it was only hours until they would know what she had done. They wouldn’t know why. She never got that chance. Years of waiting on Jakku. Endless days and nights in an uncaring dessert that had no interest in her struggle to survive, its ocean of sand seemingly going on forever just as the slowly grinding of time. And now she didn’t have enough of it. Hadn’t had enough of it to even let everyone know she was still alive. _Alive but not helping them_.. _Alive but abandoning them_..

Next to her Ben stirred, letting out a sleepy groan and stretching languidly as his eyes fluttered open, blinking against the sunlight flooding the elegant room. She made to rise herself, pretending she hadn’t been awake for that much longer than she in reality had.

Rey unfolded her legs, bare feet touching the cold marble as she stood then almost fell backwards on the sofa again when Ben gingerly caught her wrist. He opened his mouth to say something but was stopped short by a polite rapping on the door.    

After his grudging “Enter.”, a Stormtrooper rushed inside, posture all apprehension. He halted and stood at attention still a got distance away.

“Both of your presence is required in the conference chamber, Emperor.” sunrays reflected on his white armor, making it dance  as his helmet dipped to his chest in reverence at addressing her next, “Empress.”  

“We’ll be there.” Ben dismissed him with a curt flick of his hand, not letting out the frustrated sigh that went with it until the Stormtrooper had saluted and disappeared in one quick, seamless movement.

Rey pulled at the hand still loosely holding her wrist, forcing Ben to move with it, “I’m not going there on my own.” she coaxed him for good measure, the thought of even having to endure it with him by her side was nerve-wrecking enough.

“I had hoped that to be the one benefit of sharing the throne with you.” he shot back with a drowsy sort of playfulness, then got to his feet, the increased weight on her arm making her dig her heels into the glossy floor.

The meeting they had to attend turned out to be just the beginning of what seemed to Rey an incessant stream of propaganda that flooded the Holonet on purpose, showing only the order, organization and ruthless control, and not the out of sight repression and the raids and interrogations that had paved the way for that paper-thin and tentative peace.

Throughout the day guests from various parts of the galaxy arrived in their shiny and sleek spaceships, the sky was crawling with them. The Palace itself too was a hive of activity. The courtyard crowded with patrols and newcomers weaving through the Stormtroopers as they were being led inside.

They hadn’t been alone for a single moment until the sun had already sunk half way below the horizon, its orange glow growing colder and making the ivory-white all around shimmer. Ben roughly pushed open one half of the tall, oval doors, mimicking the windows all around in their shape and simplicity. It still shuddered in its hinges when he had already crossed the room and started pacing the length of it, the frames between the glass that wouldn’t let sun through making him fall in and out of shadow and light.

Rey followed inside, one hand massaging the back of her neck as she carefully rolled her shoulders. Her whole body was tense with her steadily growing disquiet as the ceremony crept nearer and nearer. She followed Ben with her eyes, his restlessness like ripples unsettling the surface of a lake. She let them pass her, trying not to obstruct their path for it would only make the impact greater. And then she saw him, making her abandon the attempt to loosen up the muscles in her neck and rooting her to the spot instead.

The young boy Ben had once been ran through the room, the pattering sound of his footsteps eerily lacking. Tears were streaming down his face as he ducked under the sofa with the ease and agility of habit. Then he faded and reappeared close the window his older version was pacing in front of like something wild and unrestrainable but unlike him the gaze of the boy was trapped somewhere far beyond the fragile layer of the glass. He vanished once again, this time rematerializing behind her, slamming the door that was closed now shut in his evident anger and sliding down to end up a miserable, lonely heap on the floor.      

“They won’t leave me alone..”

Rey swiveled around at the hoarse but deceptively stoic tone of his voice, it sounded like it had come from an immeasurable depth. Ben had stopped pacing but didn’t look any less harassed. His pronounced features were marred by frustration as the almost tangible childhood memories flitted in and out of existence, leaking through their bond for her to see. She didn’t know what to say, mesmerized as she was by one memory being replaced by the next, and the next. He didn’t say anything else either. Didn’t make a sound and just let it happen. Allowed her to observe his younger self while he looked at anything but the specter from decades ago.  

“Maybe being here will help you remember different memories too.” Rey tried, immediately realizing how feeble that had sounded.

Ben scoffed softly and cocked a skeptical brow at her, the black-haired boy that ran towards and through him dissolving like smoke.

“It doesn’t matter. There’s no time for this. Not now. We have to change. It’s only an hour until the ceremony starts.” he stated, voice void of emotion now, like he had forcefully ripped it apart from it before speaking. He made for the door leading to his own room, glancing back over his shoulder, “Azi will help you. I’ll be there as soon as I can.”

His calm felt forced and unreal but it was better than seeing him pace so powerless like that. Rey nodded, giving him a small smile as he returned it in an obvious attempt to assure her he could handle whatever this planet threw at him. At _them_.

She barely recognized herself not much later when Azi removed the dainty cloth hanging over the tall mirror with a dramatic swoosh Rey wasn’t sure a human could’ve done with more flair than the droid just had. Her hair had been weaved into an intricate but simple braid which was draped over one bare shoulder, the rest of her body, apart from her arms and neck, almost wholly covered by a deep red and stately dress. A black sash had been tied around her waist, its long end trailing down the back to where the dress fanned out around her. She muttered a hasty thank you to Azi as he zoomed around her in appreciation of his creation, then sped away to return all of the jewelry and accessories she had refused to wear.

The door on the other side of the room creaked open, revealing Ben dressed in that same rich, enticing crimson. She inadvertently held her breath as his eyes roamed over her while her own strayed all over him in return, over his undeniably handsome face, over his dark hair that wouldn’t be tamed, over the formal and slightly longer tunic that he wore with a gleaming black belt around his sturdy frame. A fine, gossamer cloak clung to his broad shoulders, another one gathered in folds in the crook of his elbow.

She hadn’t realized she was staring when he abruptly and self-consciously lowered his gaze, busying himself instead with his gloves and not immediately succeeding in pulling them on, his expression strangely troubled and strained. She utterly failed to divert her attention elsewhere like he had, imagining instead what the exquisite fabric would feel like; what running a hand under it to touch both the richness of it and the heat of his skin would feel like..

Ben stiffened, gloved hands frozen in their movement to tug out creases. An enigmatic frown creased his forehead and his mouth curved up in one corner ever so slightly.  

“Do you want me to comment on that thought?” he asked, lifting his head to throw her an intrigued and amused look.

She swallowed down what seemed like her heart now it jumped in her chest in a desperate attempt to get out through her throat.

“Hardly..” she quickly mumbled back, turning half away and aimlessly plucking at her braid, a burning shame spreading through her for her own carelessness in not keeping that thought to herself. _Out of all the thoughts he could pick up on it had to be that one_ …!

Ben huffed out a low, rumbling laugh, then walked over to her. He flung the cloak he had brought for her around her shoulders, angling them in the process so she faced him. She didn’t need to look up to feel his eyes on her. And then she felt the spine-tingling thrill he felt at the touch of her through their bond as if he freely confessed to it to make up for her obvious embarrassment. 

Gaze staying were it was he ran a finger down the edge of her collar and further along the hem, close enough to her body for Rey to feel it ghost over it as it trailed further, “You look the part. Except for your eyes. They’re still you.”   

Looking into his she felt the same relief to find them unchanged too, they were his usual inky pools. Rey was also excessively glad when he didn’t expect her to reply, she was having difficulty enough breathing, and instead offered her his arm. Hooking her hand around his elbow they left.

The palace was buzzing with anticipation, every room, every hallway they passed through was gleaming with the firefly-like lights floating just under the arched ceilings, and staff and stray guests abruptly hushed their conversations to a grinding halt.

They entered the atrium all too soon and Rey felt instantly disorientated by the bright splendor of the crystal chandeliers and glitter of rings and diamonds that played tricks on her vision. The cacophony of unfamiliar musical instruments and the grating din of chattering voices ceased at once, only to be replaced by a loud, thunderous applause.

 


	12. Chapter 12

**A/N: Thanks for the kudos and love, I appreciate it~ 333**

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Chapter 12

The purple liquid swayed in his glass as he placed it back on the table without having taken a sip, the Coruscantian wine fizzing and sending bubbles up to break the surface as if in indignation. Had he been too distracted by recalling the flow of Rey’s dress, how the red fabric on her tanned skin had made his heart race, now his focus was abruptly pulled back to the conversation he had lost track of a while ago.

The Pantoran fixed her yellow eyes on him, her blue skin embellished by golden facial tattoos that matched the delicate design of her headdress, “Is this true, Emperor?”

Ben’s silence was long enough to be noticeable, other conversations jarred and every pair of eyes turned to the head of the long, food-laden table.

“I assure you, that search is still a priority. One which we will not fail to deliver on.” Hux answered instead, making those prying, yellow eyes divert back to him again.

“Of course I do not doubt the current strength of the First Order, but with your fleet crippled and facing the necessary transition of power in its wake..” she tilted her head as if in concerned contemplation, headdress tinkling with the movement, “It would be helpful to get the assurances needed to ensure the continuation of our support. Proof that the First Order is still worthy of investment. And for that the complete annihilation of the Resistance might be… _counterproductive_ , shall we say?”

There was a general murmur of agreement, though most of the others were careful not to voice it too loudly and too conspicuously. General Hux merely looked diverted at the underlying and self-interested discontent, “We shall never run out of a purpose for your factories and services, I give you my word. After all, the absence of war merely means we will have use for your materials and arsenal to keep the peace.”

“A most comforting thought that would nevertheless be more reassuring if that peace would inspire just enough unrest to satisfy the demand for the specific products some of us offer.” she was quick to point out, blue, slender fingers lacing together.

“Naturally.” came Hux’s curt, purring reply. His posture was erect and superior as he took an appreciative sip of his wine made to look all that much darker in contrast with his eyes their usual electric blue.

“Which brings me back to your earlier promises, General.” the Pantoran leaned forward conspiringly, the many rings on her finger colliding with wood in a brief series of dull _clanks_ , “We all know the Resistance will never match the power and resources of the First Order, potential resources, I should say, so _they_ are not the real threat. But if _he_ joins them.. What if he learns of the current predicament of those few still compliant enough to play along with our little game and fight back at their own expense? What if he feels compelled to join their ranks out of some misplaced sense of loyalty? He would be a powerful enemy, by his legendary status alone. And heroes, whatever part of the galaxy they’re from, whatever side they’re on, are _always_ bad for business.”

There were some mumbled ‘ayes’, worried frowns and weighty nods, but most continued to observe in silence with their calculating, cruel and covert gazes. Ben ground his teeth, annoyed by the mercenary bargaining and the lengthy eloquence it involved. More than that he dreaded the direction this was going. He was going to be cornered. Trapped. For all his determination to rise above petty politics and create a different future this was one decision he had to make. One which he knew Rey would resent him for. He had thought about it, but there was no other way. Not that he could see. It _was_ time to end all this. And it would inevitably start with ending _him_..  

“Our thoughts exactly, Lady Varess. Which is why we haven’t abandoned our search. In fact,” Hux turned to him now, lines in his pale face pulled taut, “As the… _present_ vessel for the late Supreme Leader’s legacy, I am certain Emperor Ren will personally see to his capture. Surely you will agree with me that an imprisoned hero, a _dead_ hero, will be unlikely to cause you any financial harm. And in turn, that factor taken out of the equation will result in the inevitable consolidation of our glorious Empire when no opposition could truly hope to stand in our way.”

“An Empire,” Ben broke in, tone low and guttural, the leather of his glove creaking as he balled his hand into a fist, “which you would do well to pledge your allegiance to.” the ferocity behind his words more than anything else made it clear he had had enough of the verbal parrying and assailing. That in the end only absolute obedience mattered. He extended his presence through the Force, enhanced it so everyone would feel the menacing edge of his mind against their own. Some whimpered at the sudden ghost touch, others cringed and closed their eyes as if that would somehow protect them. It wouldn’t. Just like it wasn’t aimed at the guests alone but that the officers, the General himself, were all included in the threat.

 “So it _is_ true, then?” Lady Varess repeated her earlier question, awe quickly replacing the tremor of fear he had installed in her, in all of them, “You know where he is?”

That one question, that one _expected_ question, made him waver. Despite all his power, all his conviction that it was possible to execute his vision within the existing structure of the First Order, and _only_ within that structure, Ben felt as if he’d been pushed with his back against the wall. It was a hurdle he had hoped he would have had to take later. His own impatience for change blinding him to all the steps necessary, and the moments when they would have to be taken. 

Rey trembled ever so slightly beside him, she was breathless and tense, straining to remain silent. He could feel her anxiety rush towards him. Imploring him wordlessly to stop. To not grant their request. He couldn’t look at her. Not now. It would shatter his resolve. Ben steeled himself to answer, hating that it felt too much like crushing what they had been building up between them.

“I do.”

There was an instant wave of betrayal coming from her side, slamming into him and stealing his breath, his _strength_ , her fingers grasping her glass so tight it started to crack while Hux raised his in a toast, every guest on the main table following his example as one.

“To our Emperor and Empress…and the inevitable death of Skywalker.”

Rey shot to her feet, prompting everyone seated to do the same, their voices echoing the General’s statement lost in the harsh sound of hundreds of chairs being scraped back across the floor. Ben instantly rose  too, towering over everyone else in a warning not to test him, and moving behind her to deftly curve one arm around her middle as he took her hand in his.

_Don’t touch me..!_ she hissed in his head, the fierceness of her hostility cutting him to the core. He barely managed to repress a surge of angry regret that tightened his throat, constricted his chest, and instead increased his hold and led her away before she could stop him.

_You leave me no choice._ They _left me no choice._ He spat back defensively and with acid emphasis. His insides seemed to squirm and wreathe uncontrollably as he brought her to the spacious heart of the atrium, exerting more pressure than he would have liked because of her unwillingness to be shepherded by him. Oblivious to the Force effervescing like some restless concoction between them, across the entire accursed planet for all he knew, the musicians struck up an accompanying tune; the abrupt end of the sumptuous dinner masked by the start of their dance.

They whirled around each other in a deceptively calm and graceful pattern despite being completely deaf to the music that was to guide it. Her dress billowed at the hem, fluttering around her ankles and his, its deep red hue mingling with her braid and painting her eyes a vivid, coppery brown. She was internally fuming. _Hurting_. It made for a stark and stinging contrast with the regality and smoothness of their movements among the others that joined them, turning the world around them into a blur of colors hemmed in by the cordon of Stormtroopers which were arranged and patrolled around the festivities with a lot of meaningless, military pomp.

_How can you betray me?_ Tears clung to her lower lashes like dew. He wanted to wipe them away. Make them fall with his breath and kiss them to oblivion until they were only his.

_I didn’t._ It sounded unconvincing to him too. Powerless. A lie?

Rey scoffed, amber hue returning in her eyes but instantly acquiring a coolness as she turned her face away from his in disgust. _You’re willing to sacrifice Master Skywalker-_

_Don’t call him that. He doesn’t deserve that title._ Ben cursed his instinctive reaction to lash out. Too violently a habit to break just like that. Especially now. When everything seemed to slip between his fingers like sand. When _she_ was slipping from his hold. How could he remain calm, regain control, when he felt overwhelmingly scared of losing her? When he was just as scared of it as he had been in the throne room..

Her jaw flexed, lips morphing into a thin line and her brows furrowing in a pained expression hovering between disbelief and disappointment. _You’ve bartered away your uncle’s life, the fate of the resistance, of_ peace _,  in return for the support of unconscionable arms dealers, greedy traders, corrupt politicians and ambitious, bloodthirsty military leaders-_

_There is no other way. Rey_ , he made their dance slow down, the sudden lull in the fluid but dizzying motion belatedly altering the vortex in which the Force still swirled around them; an eddying current moving contrary to the gravity that moved their bodies around each other like a sun and moon.

_I hate these people as much as you do, but for the time being they’re a means to an end.. It_ is _time for the Jedi to end._

He thought he could detect a sudden shock of recognition diluting her pupils that drained from her eyes again as both of them swayed in each other’s arms when they finally came to a standstill. Then she used the momentary pause in their dance to look directly up at him. He felt the blow of what she was going to say rattle his frame, _grip his soul_ , before she had even uttered it.

_I trusted you.._

The doubt, the uncertainty and hurt reverberating in the accusation left him hollow and unable to move a muscle. Before he could prevent it she had untangled herself from their obligatory and tense embrace and disappeared among the dancing pairs twisting and spiraling all around, filing all his vision with disorienting movements and obstructing his path as he tried to find her.   

_Rey! Rey, stop..!_ It was no use. She had closed off her mind from him and his words remained stuck in his own skull, echoes mocking just how much he had messed this up. The emptiness of the dimly lit hallway running as a ring around the atrium spurred his own on to swell as he stumbled upon it. His emergence made a figure –or two?- move amongst the shadows and slip back into the bright, bustling atrium without being betrayed by the transition. Ben was about to set chase knowing it couldn’t have been Rey but wanting to make sure nonetheless, when he caught the subtle gleam of familiar red hair.

The smug expression Hux wore froze on his face before it had fully morphed into one of fear as Ben crushed him onto his knees with the Force. He locked him into place, a statue of insincere and imposed reverence. The red saber ignited with a predatory hum, casting its violent glow on the two of them. Ben directed it to within an inch of the General’s face, making blue eyes widen and contort at its proximity, at the sparks that shot towards him, burning his skin. He guided it closer still. The fluctuating edge taking a greedy bite as it touched his ear. A soundless scream widened his eyes even more and Hux struggled to suck in a ragged, gurgling breath, it was all his constricted windpipe would let through at Ben’s command.

The saber immaterialized again as quickly as it had appeared, leaving a corner from his earlobe seemingly torn off, _shredded_. It hadn’t seared it completely though, causing blood to gush from the fresh wound, streaming down his jaw and neck and steeping his crisp, immaculate uniform.     

Ben withdrew his hold on Hux kneeling at his feet all at once, he immediately fell forward onto his hands at the sudden release, letting out a sharp hiss of pain, his constrained cry not reaching above the chatter and music drifting over from the atrium. Panting he grasped for his ear with one hand, pressing against it and wincing with an audible grunt of seething agony as he felt for the chunk that was missing from it.

Ben didn’t bother to look at the man as he reattached the saber to his belt, whisking around swiftly. He had lost too much time already in putting the General in his place. He deserved to be subjected to much worse, of course, especially after forcing his hand with his sly promises made on his behalf to eradicate the last Jedi. _To make him risk losing Rey_ …

“You should count yourself lucky, General, that I still have use for you.” Ben called over his shoulder, his voice and the lingering threat of retribution magnified by the walls,  “But challenge me again and it’ll be the last thing you’ll do..”

(…)

Lifting up her long dress with both her hands so it wouldn’t drag over the floor, Rey hurried through the throng of people, none of them noticing her until she had already passed them. She ducked through an archway in front of which an elegant curtain rocked back and forth with the spinning air currents created by the dancing guests. To her surprise she stepped out onto a large, thankfully unoccupied balcony, safe for a handful of Palace Guards and Stormtroopers who instantly stood at attention before hurriedly making themselves scarce. She supposed the look of utter outrage and frustration was indication enough that she did not wish for their company. Not that she doubted they would remain close by, unseen but vigilant. Guards for her protection or to make sure she didn’t run away?

Rey increased her pace at that horrifying thought, cloak tugging at her shoulders as she made for the balustrade, planting her palms flat on the cool stone with such force when she got there that it sent a jolt of short-lived pain up her arms. She looked out over a labyrinthine garden, not really registering the many fountains and ornate hedges stretching out peacefully before her. The serenity of the view couldn’t be a more glaring opposition to how she felt.

_It is time for the Jedi to end.._

It wasn’t the first time she had heard someone say that. The irony wasn’t lost on her that Master Skywalker himself had tried to convince her of the very same truth. But she refused to see Ben’s side. To agree with him. With _them_. They couldn’t be right. For the first time in her life she had felt her awakening Force abilities had made her belong. Had made her a part of a tradition that seemed to her older than the galaxy itself. And now, before she had truly understood her role in all of this, he would take the one link she had to it away. Would exchange his uncle’s life for questionable deals with unreliable and untrustworthy supporters. Not a trade she was willing to make. She had hoped Ben wouldn’t be either. Being wrong about that shook her to the core. He might have just as well named the planet. Described the island. Betrayed that sacred place like he had her..

“Empress?”

Rey swiveled around at the sound of the metallic voice, goosebumps rising the hairs on her arms when she could just discern the shadowy outline of a robed figure. The crooked protrusion jutting out from the mask did nothing to settle her nerves when Tori Ren glided into the pallid glow of the twin moons above.

“I have no need of you.” Rey snapped, the urge to turn around and away from the prying stare trapped behind silver and steel but not less sensible only gainsaid by the stronger instinct to not offer her back to the Knight she hardly trusted.

“Of course, if that is your wish, my Empress. I merely wondered if it would be advisable to be out here. _Alone_.”

A shiver ran through her at her ominous wording. Rey didn’t fail to pick up on her knowing deduction that something had happened to cause Ben not to be by her side. Despite her inner turmoil it made her feel his absence all the more no matter how much she wished for it at the moment.

“She’s not alone, exactly.” Another voice remarked in an almost nonchalant boredom, a second figure dressed in an equally layered and black attire appeared through the archway, the curtain falling back behind her with an audible sigh. Yara Ren tipped her head subtly at the Palace guards and Stormtroopers standing watch just beyond the edge of the light spilling outside from the atrium, the intricate patterns on her fine mask glinting wistfully. 

“Forgive the intrusion, Empress Rey. It will not happen again.” she turned to her next, inclining her head in reverent apology and ignoring the annoyed _tsk_ Tori made, distorted as the mask made the sound of her disapproval as her tongue had clacked once against the roof of her mouth.    

Rey sent her a cautious nod that was more reluctant tolerance than gratitude, her hand moving to the hilt of her lightsaber. It might not have fitted as well with the sash and most of all her dress, but she was now excessively glad she had taken it with her.

Yara Ren didn’t show in anything that she had noticed the gesture even though her fellow Knight practically snarled at the perceived insult of mistrust. Instead, she made to lower her head once more, “We will leave you now and inform the Emperor where he can find you-”

“ _No_.” her hasty dismissal arrested both women in their movements, Tori ceasing her impatient pacing and Yara stiffening half way her bow.

Rey swallowed hard, heart throbbing in her ears, “That.. That won’t be necessary-”

“No. It won’t.”

Framed against the brightness of the atrium behind him, Ben’s tall silhouette stirred and he strode forward, dispelling the blinding effect so that his features regained their distinct sharpness. Without another word he dismissed the Knights with a single flick of his hand and waited for the two to be gone, his cloak getting caught in the breeze, wrapping itself around him like a cocoon. Even amidst the inkiness of the world outside his black strands maintained their dark color as they were ruffled by the same, gentle gust of wind.

Rey had felt the magnetizing pull to look at him, to find his eyes with hers but stopped herself just before her gaze would settle and in all likelihood be lost in his. Determined to brush passed him without saying anything she was stopped in her tracks by a sound she hadn’t heard in most of her life. A sound that was as mesmerizing as it was soothing. As if acting on its own accord the Force enhanced either it or her hearing until she felt overwhelmed by the sound of waves. The rush of water retreating then pouring back calling out to her to join their repetitive, steadying rhythm. 

She cast a gauging look at Ben, not sure if she would stop herself even if he would by some small gesture or word try to. He didn’t. He looked as captivated as she felt, worry and anger retreating to the periphery of his Force signature where they hovered uneasily but subdued.

She followed the hypnotizing cycle of water moving closer then farther away, Ben at a respectful distance behind her but close enough that she could hear his boots grinding the pebbles of the path; feel his cloak graze her heels as the wind rippled her own too.   

They came upon the beach as they rounded a gnarled, bent willow with swaying tentacles for branches. The waves rolling in and drawing back on the rippling surface of a glimmering sea had swelled to a rumbling roar. Her boots sank partly in the sand, slowing her down but not stopping her. She didn’t halt until she had reached the brink of the sea, for a brief, outstretched moment reveling in the magnificence of the sight before her. The dark shapes of hills flanked the swirling mass of water, interrupted by the tall pinnacles of buildings that were riddled with blotches of light, the wet sand glistening in the soft, indigo glow of the twin moons on the hem of her dress and the rimmed shells washing ashore-

Her breath hitched in her throat at the familiarity of the scene, the image of another but undeniably similar beach instantly superimposed over the one she now stood on.

“I saw her here. With you..” she turned around, trembling at the realization, but it was as if Ben had instead gained unwavering certainty since they had set out after the source of the waves. His energy in the Force was pulsating with utter surety. With an intense longing.

“I saw her too. Right here. Holding your hand as you both waited for the waves to reach your bare toes dug in the sand..” his voice grew hoarser, an emotion she couldn’t immediately fathom flashing across his face, “But she’s not here. Not yet.”

Her confusion grew as it gained clarity; a veil becoming transparent before it was lifted.

“You know who she is?”

“I think you do too.” Ben took a determined step closer, eyes locking onto hers, their usual dark edges softening, “Rey, that little girl.. She’s our daughter.”

 


	13. Chapter 13

A/N: _Hey~ Sorry for the long wait; here's me nervously hoping the contents of this chapter will make up for it ;) Thanks for the kudos/comments and all of that lovely jazz, all of your support really is much appreciated! 3  
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Chapter 13

Her eyes widened, pupils wavering in pools of confused hazel as her breath caught. Ben waited for her to overcome her shock. For that same exhilarating sense of belonging that spilled out of him to overtake it. To have his unfamiliar but unrestrained joy merge with hers when she would realize he was telling the truth. Ever since he had discovered the shared element in their visions he had yearned for the confirmation of it. For her acknowledgement. _That one day_..

But it didn’t come. She didn’t say anything. Couldn’t even move. Instead the drag and push of waves grew more deafening with each renewal of that ceaseless rhythm; mercilessly eroding his light, his _hope_ , with it.

“Rey.. Say something..” he pleaded, her silence was in many ways so much worse than an indignant retort or blatant disbelief would have been. A sharp intake of breath. Her hands clutching the folds of her dress then releasing their hold again as if in surrender. She knew. If not before, she did now. Those brown orbs seemed to ripple then fracture, break a little. Acceptance? Resignation? _Rejection..?_

She _knew_ …and yet didn’t want it to be true. Didn’t want _him_.

Ben took a step forward, desperate to reach her. To read her thoughts. To sense her feelings. To beg her to give him a sign. Any sign. A promise. That their child was real. That one day she would be.

_…That she could lov-_

Rey took one step back in response to his approach. And another. Faltering but away from him. She closed her eyes, visibly shivered and turned her back on him, cloak billowing as she staggered a little as if wounded and then strained herself to keep walking. Watching her go felt like something was ripped out of him with such force that the world reeled around him when its precarious balance got sucked out with it too. Stars were scattered at his feet. The sea rushed down from the dark sky. Two moons intertwining, melding, then sailing away from each other again. The echoes of his own voice calling out after her dwindling form loud and panicked, then fragile and hoarse.

When he had finally regained control over his senses and the horizon had slid back into place, Rey was gone. He set out after her. Following the glistening sand of her footprints through halls and up flights of stairs until he halted in front of the door leading to her bedroom. A sliver of light ran along the bottom, cut off from its source every time her pacing shadow moved passed.

His voice didn’t work. Wouldn’t come out. Like it had been defeated by the sheer impossibility to be really heard by her now. Knowing it to be futile, Ben still stretched out his consciousness. It hit the walls around her mind with a crash. He turned away, wincing, swaying, and leaned back, shoulders colliding with the door as he slid down it. The _tap-tap-tap_ of her heels halted for a brief moment, Ben swore he could feel the periphery of the Force buzzing around her carefully, reluctantly, probe in his direction, then was instantly withdrawn again and she resumed her pacing.

(…)

She pressed her ear against the door one more time, stifling a surge of guilt at the relief she felt that nothing but silence could be heard. Clipping the lightsaber on her belt she cast one last look around the room, picked up her bag and placed her hand on the bronze handle.

Rey stepped over the threshold, only to abruptly halt again alongside the slumped but still tall figure of Ben; his chin was dipped towards his chest, lidded eyes twitching a little in his sleep and his breathing almost inaudible. Despite the illusion of rest and peace there was something unmistakably haunted in the creases in his forehead and the way he clenched his fists.

Unable to watch him and not feel the wrongness of what she was about to do she ducked her head as if in shame and hurried passed. It took all of her self-control to keep going. To make her way through the lofty palace that was all dark and quiet now. To not give in to the chaos of emotions that were stirring, _screaming_ at her to stop. To turn around. To go back. Go back to _him_..

She stubbornly increased her pace. Needlessly repositioning the bag slung around her shoulder and tapping the hilt of her lightsaber, trying desperately to focus on nothing else but the feel and sound of her heels hitting the ground, taking her further and further away.

Of course a palace such as this, a planet such as this, never truly slept. There were Stormtroopers patrolling everywhere; interchangeable, armored puppets making their rounds with the echoes of their seemingly endless marching irrationally making them grow in number. With some luck she slipped passed them and outside. A few small lizards slithered up the high walls as the gate closed behind her with a shudder. She instantly dismissed the startled security officer heading straight for her and was glad to be quickly rid off him and his accompanying unit of guards when he obeyed, salute lingering a little too long in his obvious hesitation to comply.

The upsilon-class shuttle perched like a roosting raven at the precise center of the square, its black wings pointing skywards, red and green blips running along their rims. The sight filled her with dread. With reluctance. But how could she do any different? She needed to warn him. Make him leave. Flee. Whatever it was that would keep him alive. Whatever would keep him out of the clutches of the First Order. _Away from Ben_..

Finally having slipped between her defenses that thought alone stopped her in her tracks. She stood, for an impossible long moment, transfixed. _How could he have pushed her towards that impossible choice_?! Would her betrayal in turn even out the score? Would he let the First Order stamp its Empress as a traitor when she returned? Would he sacrifice her like he was willing to do with Master Skywalker?

_…Would he quash with it their chil-_

Rey cursed under her breath, setting her jaw as she willed herself to move. To keep going. The shuttle came to life at the merest perusal of her touch, the ramp sleekly sliding down to admit her.

She hastened inside, getting rid of her bag and swiveling the pilot’s chair around. Ignoring the gnawing sensation that was wreaking havoc in her chest, Rey started flipping switches and activating systems. The shuttle obediently absorbed her input, granting her requests instantly as she pulled up the necessary navigational charts and entered the right set of coordinates. Her movements were rushed, erratic almost. Performed with an urgency to make it respond to her even faster. Then they became less directed and purposeful. Faltered. Slowed. All zeal drained from the activity until her hands hovered above the controls, quavering. _Unwilling_.

She let out a cry in frustration at their disobedience, then balled them into angry fists and pressed them against her forehead. It didn’t help to erase the images playing repeatedly against the inside of her skull. To stop them from exerting that powerful pull tugging relentlessly at her heart.

She couldn’t look away from the girl’s delight in anticipation of the waves, the foam that crested it picked up by the wind. Couldn’t stop seeing Ben taking that small hand. How he looked straight at her. Answering her gaze with the enticing promise of being whole. _Complete_.

Tears streamed down her face as she scrunched up her eyes in a futile attempt to stem their flow. They cascaded freely over her cheeks, painful but liberating sobs escaping her failing restraint too. She hunched over the controls, her whole body heaving, cowering with the overwhelming realization.

She couldn’t lose that. Couldn’t lose him.. _Them_. Even if it meant.. Whatever it would mean she would have to do.. Rey took a shuddering breath, steadying herself a little. She still felt shaken but calmer now. Numbed certainty dulling the sting of her emotions somewhat.

Something pale and fragile made her eyes prick. She looked up, vision flooding with the first of daylight and she couldn’t help but be in awe. Rey sat up a little straighter, for one blissful moment disconnecting with all pressing thoughts and raging feelings as she simply watched the sun being born through the viewport.

(…)

It must have been hours later when he woke with a start. Dark strands obscuring his blurred vision. His chest hollow, as if someone had scraped out the marrow in his bones. Despite his dogged determination to not give up trying to reconnect to Rey, to wait as long as he had to for her to open up to him, he had fallen asleep; becoming an easy prey for restless dreams an infuriating web of confusing, taunting images and sounds.

A draft whispered against the back of his neck. He shot to his feet as the implication of that sank in. One of the double doors was swung wide open. Heart hammering in his throat, Ben pushed the other half inward, finding the room behind it abandoned. Her crimson dress lay on the floor in an untidy heap, its color bleeding into the white marble while a shaft of sunlight peering through the narrow crevices between curtains cast the crumpled bedsheets and scattered pillows in intermittent brightness. There were a few items here and there, all equally left behind in seeming hurry.

Raw, grating fear threatened to engulf him and he expanded the Force around him in a desperate attempt to locate her, to encompass the entire planet, its orbit, the space vessels crowding it and even brushing against the first few stars within reach. He found her a lot closer than he in his panic had envisioned. He slumped a little in tentative relief as he focused on that glorious pulse of energy, dulled now her mind was still closed off to him, but _there_.

He strode out of the room, almost colliding with an officer, no, a pilot.

“M- My Emperor.” she moved away from him in frightened embarrassment, awkwardly bending her stiffened back into a formal half-bow, “Empress Rey has sent me to you.”

“Where is she?” he instantly demanded.

“She is waiting for you in your shuttle-”

Ben swept passed her before she had finished the sentence. He registered little else apart from Rey’s signature, allowing himself to have it draw him closer. _Closer_. He saw his shuttle. Engines not even switched on but its hatch opened.

He ascended the ramp in haste, not prepared for the surge of relief crushing into him at the sight of her. Her shoulders tensed a little at his approach and she turned her head to the side, eyes not quite making it all the way to him.

“Rey..” He let his emotions roll towards her, barrage her even, but he just felt so immensely relieved she hadn’t left. Hadn’t left _him_.

She trembled, struggling to reply, ultimately failing and reverting her attention back to the console in front of her, fingers flying across it in what he recognized as a needless repetition of commands she must have already initiated.

He couldn’t bear that she was still keeping up those walls. Something had changed within her. But she would not let him truly see it. Still hesitated to have him access her feelings. Connect with her. He hated being cut off from her. Cut off from hope that he had little enough of for himself but that he refused to give up on. If he did..

_Then he would kill the future he longed for instead of the past he still recoiled from._

Unable to take it any longer, to be exposed to her silence, Ben retreated into the washing compartment, the cramped space hardly sufficient to serve as an outlet for his frustration. He shifted his weight to the balls of his feet when he felt the subtle pull of artificial gravity as they became airborne. The humming around him increased, the presence of a million dots of energy growing fainter as they broke through the outer atmosphere and into space, almost immediately followed by that press against his eardrums with the ignition of the hyper drive engines.

Ben threw off his gloves, activating the tap by slamming his hand on the sensor, making water gush out in a sputtering arc. He clawed at the hem of his tunic, finally freeing his throat from the suffocating drag of his cloak and casting it aside. Hands resting on the rim of the sink for support the utter helplessness coursing through him swelled until it was too much to contain. Ben lashed out, ramming a fist into the mirror, destroying it rather than being devoured by all of this raw emotion himself. The wall had dented with the impact, shards reflecting back the pain in his own eyes. The parts that were missing, that hadn’t been crushed into the wall, tinkled in the sink, water pouring over them, making them tremble and having ragged auras of light bounce off onto the glossy surface of the compartment.

Breathing heavily he unclasped his belt, tore his tunic over his head and bend over the sink again, its metal cool against his body. Ignoring the broken fragments at the bottom Ben cupped his hands, splashing the water pooled in them in his face then stilled again.  

Drops fell from his nose and the tips of his wet hair but he didn’t bother to dry himself with one of the towels. Instead he pulled open a random drawer and took out a fresh tunic. He had only just put it on when their connection fully returned without warning.

Abandoning his attempt to pull on his gloves, Ben half stumbled outside, immediately stepping out into main compartment that was now flooded with the hellish white and blue of hyperspace.

“Are you hurt?” her voice cracked. He didn’t need to ask why she would think he could have been. Shards still tumbled down from the shattered mirror, the soft _chinks_ it caused mingling with the steady hum of the shuttle.

“No..”

It was only partly true. The throbbing in his reddened knuckles wasn’t the pain he cared about, that _really_ hurt.

Rey stood in the center, gravitated and forlorn at the same time, the large viewport stretching out at either side of her. Her head turned slightly again, aligning her profile with her shoulder. This time she didn’t revert it back to stare ahead again. He instinctively closed the distance between them when she finally faced him.

Ben could see the faint traces of dried up tears, prompting him to cradle her head in his hands, fingers digging in her hair, thumbs attempting to rub them away in soothing strokes.

“I _couldn’t_..” her breath hitched and she swayed against him. A torrent of regret, of a magnetizing warmth washed over him, inevitably colliding with his own need for her. Both being swept up with the current of released affection.

“Couldn’t what?” he murmured back though he hoped he already knew. He _did_ know.

Her hands grabbed a hold of his tunic as she steadied herself against him, eyes unblinking and an alluring mix of ebony-flecked amber, “ _Leave_.. I couldn’t. Not without you..”

Ben released the breath he was holding, a huff of such intense relief that it made all of him tremble. Drops clinging to his hair were steadily dripping down the side of his neck, he could feel them travel down his tunic, the cold trails they left on his skin sparking electricity in his veins.

“Be-”

The mere sound of his name pushed him over the edge and he smothered her voice as their lips crashed together.


	14. Chapter 14

A/N: Thanks for the kudos and comments~ 333

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Chapter 14

Her body at first seemed locked in place, her control of it completely overridden by the new sensation of his lips pressed against hers. Neither of them moved immediately, their breathing halting instead, time jarring in anticipating suspense. Then his lips retreated just enough to brush against hers, leaving a bombardment of teasing tingles in their wake. Rey opened hers a little, tentatively; eagerly. He instantly covered them with his, more forcefully this time, an increase in pressure as he opened his lips too and they latched onto hers, let go, then clung to them again.

Rey stood on tiptoes, an urgency coursing through her veins which she had never experienced before prompting her to cancel out his advantage in height, to have the tantalizing caresses as she hung from his lips morph into more. He let her deepen their kiss, both at first responding clumsily to the mesmerizing rise in intensity; noses bumping, teeth too and tongues barely crazing, sending a powerful jolt up her spine every time they did.

They only pulled apart when they had to draw in soft, panting breaths. Rey grabbed fistfuls of his tunic, upsetting his balance just enough that he tumbled into her, initial insecurity melting away in the increased heat of their kiss when their lips soon and inevitably clashed again.  

She let it wash over her, each exhilarating wave as it crashed into the both of them as their kiss became more hurried, their lips colliding with every peak, then retreating until pulled together again by the next. It was hard not to surrender, to _want_ to surrender, to that maddening, inescapable pattern; like a moon orbiting a planet giving in to that magnetizing pull closer until they hit. The power released by the collision, by their whirl of feelings momentarily merging, only fueled the intimacy of their embrace more.

They released each other with mutual half-gasps for air, the sudden lull in their almost despair driven rhythm making Ben go back in for a final, playful tug at her bottom lip. Rey smiled, at what he did, at them, at what they had just given in to, and the curve of it broke their contact. But he did not renew it, instead he locked his gaze with hers as her eyes fluttered open to meet his, their dark hue drowning his pupils and yet shining bright; filled with life.

Without uttering a word she let Ben guide her head to rest on his collarbones. He pressed a kiss on the crown of her head, she could feel him grin through it, releasing a pleasant wreathing in her chest. The current around them, though far from settling just yet, became a calmer though still electrifying hum that buzzed against their overflowing edges in the Force, their signatures mingling yet growing more distinct somehow and she knew the moment when they had to face the galaxy and its cruel truths again would claim them soon.

“We can’t return empty handed..” Ben at last broke the monotonous drone of the shuttle. She leaned back to survey him, his features cast in the luminous but pallid light of hyperspace.

“I know.” she was relieved to hear her voice come out more determined than defeated. It wasn’t. A defeat. There still had to be a way to turn this around. To not alter the decision but adapt it so the outcome would not mean _that_.

He pouted slightly, eyelids flickering as he cast his gaze down in hesitation before looking back directly at her again, the halo of his eyes frayed with sincere worry now. “I’m not sure that you do.”

Rey clenched her jaw, not leaving the defiance she felt from her voice, “I will not force Master Skywalker to surrender. If the First Order intends to sign his death warrant, he deserves to be warned. By both of us.”

“And then? After you’ve informed him of the price on his head, a price he has lived with for years and which wasn’t enough to coax him out of his self-imposed exile.. You think he’ll come willingly if we ask him? That he’ll sacrifice himself to save those he already left behind? What makes you so sure he won’t be just as willing to abandon us to our fate too?”

There was no hint of mockery in his words but it still grated her ears like a disdainful sneer. Her shoulders tensed before she squared them again, the cramped vessel enveloping them vibrating softly underfoot as it continued to zoom effortlessly through space, oblivious to the fact that it might arrive at its destination before they had decided what to do when they did.

She took a step back, repressing with some effort the reluctance she felt at the created distance between them, “If there’s even a small chance that he will listen, then yes, we’ll ask him. He can come with us or we will let him go. It will be his choice.”

“I doubt he will see it that way.”

“I will not take him prisoner. I can’t. He’s the only hope, the only chance of survival the Resistance has. If I can’t help them directly anymore, then the least I can do is offer Master Skywalker a free passage to join them.” her hands released his tunic, they regretfully slid down to cradle her form as she started pacing. Rey was painfully aware of how that restless motion mirrored the wavering conviction behind the logic she had just stated.

“Fine.” came his terse reply, disagreement evident in the rigidity his tall frame acquired, “But you are only delaying the inevitable. If we warn him now.. What happens when we find him again, and we _will_ , how long are you going to allow him to run away? To hide. Leave the galaxy to fend for itself, when that same galaxy needs to be freed of the legend that ultimately will mean either his death or ours-”

“Don’t say that.” Rey cut him off, stopping abruptly. The impossible duality felt too much like an ultimatum. Like a path once again branching in two equally imperfect directions when all she wanted was a third that would run between it.

“What do you think will happen if we don’t… _solve_ this? If the First Order is cut off from its financial and material lifelines because of the arrogance of a stubborn, faded Jedi who has no place in our new order, we will lose the power and influence required to truly let it all go. Don’t you see?” Ben’s voice betrayed a hint of fervent concern, he lowered it though that did not reduce its fierceness as he added, “Rey, they will turn against us even before we have started to mold the First Order to our wishes, our needs, the galaxy’s right to a balance, all because you would have a single man escape.”

She turned her back on him, grabbing the back of the pilot’s seat for support. Where would she get answers as to what to do? It was ironic how she had expected to find those on the island they were headed for, and how she would probably still not find them there this second time around. The silence that fell was oppressive, the both of them tense. Eventually he stirred. She could feel his desire to apologize, not in words but his slightly hunched form appearing next to her counted the same for her. They stood on opposing ends over this but he didn’t like it any better than she did. The realization provided a strange solace.

Ben brushed passed her, sinking down in the other chair, then reached back for her, his hand first searching and eventually curling tentatively around hers without looking up and yet she knew he could register every minute change in her expression, in her posture, could read her reaction perfectly through their bond. With a patience that must cost him considerable effort he waited for her to respond. To settle back into that uneasy but tangible truce that still promised the potential of true peace between them. One day.

Rey complied almost automatically and sat down, clutching his hand tighter as if she had felt it coming when the shuttle shuddered. Small lights scattered across the control board flashed rather needlessly as the streaks of white and blue froze, dissolved and were replaced by a cold blackness within which a blue-gray planet rotated small and vulnerable.

Their hands surrendered their hold on each other, slow but decisively. Rey took control of the shuttle while Ben monitored environmental readings and life signs. Not that he needed the instruments to inform him of those. They both simply performed their tasks to delay just a little longer the imminent moment of arrival.

Breaking through thin wisps of cloud she allowed her instinct to return her to the island. She soon spotted it, an oasis of green covering black rock that jutted out from a vast and ever moving ocean. She touched down where the Falcon had mere weeks ago. The grass was still slightly discolored and flattened in places.

They made their way outside in complete silence. She was grateful that Ben hung back a little and let her take the lead, though she could sense his almost predatory alertness to their surroundings. All of his attention already focused on what, or rather _who_ , they would encounter.

It felt so very different to be back here now. On Ahch-To. And not just because she had seemingly torn Ben from his part of the galaxy and planted him here with her. Here, where he had already been as a phantom presence. But that wasn’t what made the island feel different. As if aware of the purpose of their coming it had quietened, withdrawn, like a tortoise tugging in its head protectively. Even the porgs were nowhere to be seen, the occasional far away cooing or squawk was the only evidence of their lingering presence. The caretakers too didn’t show themselves. They must either be hiding in the collection of conical huts or have left altogether. _But why?_

As they climbed the steps up the steep slopes of the island Rey could swear they had become even mossier and more cracked since her brief absence. She halted as they came upon the tiny village, at first sight it appeared void of life. Her eyes were drawn to the rubble strewn in an almost perfect circle outwards from its crumbled center, marking the hut she had stayed in but which was no longer there.

_The memory was_. Vivid. Palpable.

Ben walked up behind her, eyes scanning everything but the broken hut but then his hand deliberately touched hers in passing, a subtle, meaningful brush against her fingers to let her know he remembered it too.

Rey remained on the same spot a little longer, slowly turning around her own axis to take in the small settlement, hoping to be able to put her finger on the change this place had undergone. Like everything else it felt abandoned. Deserted. Although that increased her unease it did not diminish the island’s beauty. After a life of nothing but sand and a glaring sun Rey still found it perfect; a haven of green in a swirling mass of water that was never still, the air cool and refreshing.

Catching movement from the periphery of her vision she looked up at the pike-like flag pole planted a few yards away, made from weathered wood it swayed a little as the wind clawed at the frayed cloth tied to the top. Out of habit she had marked each of her days here, the notches crude and shallow. Counting them now she realized just how much it hadn’t matched the hours she really had been away.

“Time really must be passing differently here.” she thought out loud, tracing the marks with a finger along the gnarled, eroded wood.

Boots grinding porous rubble to dust Ben joined her. He frowned, pensively at first, then he cast a look around as if in search of an explanation and finding it almost instantly in the concentrated mass that the Force was here.

“Makes sense. They would have build the first temple in a place that is exceptionally strong with the Force. It feels thick. Tangible. _Primal_.”

Rey could only nod and agree, feeling she could never have found the words to describe it like he just had. For an instant she felt a surge of envy at his prowess, his abilities obviously honed and attuned by extensive training and years of devotion despite the emotional and violent outbursts that still threatened to have him spire out of control.

“What’s over there..?” he asked her, already starting to move in the direction he was gazing at. Rey followed him silently, recognizing the pull he was responding to, luring him closer. But she could not have prepared herself for the sight awaiting her at the end of the winding path to the very core of the island.

The beautiful tree was nothing more than a sad tribute to a tradition that was so precariously close to being lost. Blackened branches twisted in all directions and the narrow opening had collapsed entirely while roots had been exposed from the ground and were covered in soot and ash. 

“Did he do this?” Ben looked around at her but she could not tear her horrified gaze away from the destroyed tree.

“He couldn’t have.. He wouldn’t.” she murmured back in disbelief. Forehead creased in confusion she crouched down, grabbing a fistful of charred wood that perished to fragile flakes in her grasp. Then she felt the sudden prickling at the back of her neck.

“There!”

Ben had already set chase after the robed figure disappearing again behind the edge of the valley that had once harbored the First Jedi Temple before she had even fully straightened. She spurred herself on to follow but didn’t get far. Almost losing her footing as she hurried up the steps towards the zenith of the island, her gaze tumbled over the edge only to find something missing underneath the churning waves that definitely had been there last time. A distinct, long and winged shape had vanished from its watery grave..

(…)

A glimpse of heels disappearing up the final steps made Ben instantly increase his pace. It wasn’t even the man they belonged to but the almost indifferent ease and sedateness of his movement that goaded him the most. He ducked through the mouth of the cave without pause, striding inside with purpose and anger mingling. The two opposing forces blurred a little more with every step he took closer to his uncle.

He stood on a ledge with his back against him, hooded and wearing frayed, discolored Jedi robes worn so thin it was as if light passed right through the fabric, revealing the frail and old frame of the man they attempted to shape.

“Luke..” he spoke with a venom that he couldn’t hold back entirely. There were so many memories flooding back, practically bursting through his surface despite his unyielding intention to remain in control. Of everything. Of _himself_.

His uncle tilted his chin upward, his form swelling just a little as he inhaled the salty air wafting inside as if he wanted to fill more than just his lungs with it. Then he turned around aggravatingly slow, pulling back the hood to reveal a face Ben had never been able to forget. A face that had haunted him in a way that made him hate it more. It was older now. He was. The lines in his face ragged, his beard grizzled and his hair longer and unkempt. The only thing that had remained the same were those unnerving blue eyes. He couldn’t read the emotion in them, only remembered the disappointment and the cold resignation that had filled them that night..

The thought pierced him like a blade and the next instant his red saber had snarled to life, “You will come with us.”

With the hint of an enigmatic smile, Luke folded his hands behind his back and ambled towards him, unfazed and otherwise ignoring his demand.

“I suppose I must feel honored that you came looking for me. That now you have found me.”

“This is not about our reunion.” Ben retorted, annoyed at the conversational tone of his former Master. This was _not_ a game..!

“No?” Luke arched a brow in curiosity not surprise, “Then you don’t want me to say it?”

Ben scowled at the question, he had had enough of overbearing teachers playing with his mind. It was even more infuriating he was at a loss what his uncle meant. Then the blue eyes observing him calmly flashed, morphing into a saddened look of immeasurable depth and rawness and he knew.

“Of course you will never forgive me. I’m not even sure you should. But I _am_ sorry-”

“ _There’s nothing you can say that will change my mind_.” Ben cut him off ruthlessly through gritted teeth. He was not going to allow him an appeal to his heart. It was too late for that.

For a moment Luke simply stood there, unmoving but expression wavering. Then he subjected him to a measuring gaze, giving him the eerie feeling he didn’t even need to enter his head to pry his thoughts, his innermost secrets from him. To once again judge him lost to the Dark Side as he had done before. _When he had changed everything_..

Understanding, not judgement, dawned on his uncle’s face, some of the light hesitatingly returning to his eyes now.

“Maybe I don’t have to. Looks like she already did.”

“ _What?_ ” Ben hissed, the strange and tentative triumph in his uncle’s voice making him fear he had guessed at the true extent of his connection with Rey. It upset him beyond anything the old man had said before; made his heart clench painfully in his chest.

“You would’ve already struck if she hadn’t.” Luke replied, unperturbed and sagely, the tone instantly riling Ben, making him grip his saber even tighter.

“I will not lose her because of you.. I won’t let you.” he threatened, and he meant it.

“I couldn’t. Even if I tried. I did.” his uncle huffed out a laugh, the bitter tinge to it seemingly directed at himself, “Maybe that particular failure is a fitting atonement for failing you.”

“You _will_ atone. The First Order will see to it. You may hold on to your life but the past will die with your imprisonment. It _has_ to.”

“No..” Luke shook his head in that accursed noble way of his, determination hardening the lines in his face, “It would only become more alive. Gain strength…and further weaken you-”

“Liar..!” Ben spat with a feral growl, bringing the saber up in a swift arc so that it pointed forward. He fixed Luke with a glare over the cross guard and the vibrating length of the beam. The weapon trembled with his rage, so did his entire body. Steam and vapor coiled from the puddle of water the saber had disturbed, a mosaic just under the surface distorted by the violent ripples. His outburst still bounced of the walls in furious echoes when Luke took a determined step closer.  

“Ben..” he didn’t sound pleading, but there was regret, acceptance. _A goodbye_..?

“You are not our last hope. But she could be yours..”

The sincerity and resolution of his words made Ben blink in utter confusion, control in danger of slipping from his hold. It took everything he had to not lash out. “Enough.. You will come with us.”     

“I can’t. You’ve been raging at a specter, like you have been ever since Snoke took you away from us..”

The truth slammed into Ben, sudden and unforgiving. The deception he had been too blind to perceive patiently waiting for him to be unveiled. He hadn’t sensed Master Skywalker at all when they got here, then he had picked up on the faint trace of his energy, barely distinguishable from the web of the Force that entangled the island, the ocean, the planet itself perhaps; held it in its tight, powerful grip. That signature hadn’t spiked or even become a fraction more solid when that figure appeared. It felt too hollow, too much like an echo to really be him. Whoever that figure was, it wasn’t Master Skywalker. Or it wasn’t _all_ of him..

Hating that his hand shook, Ben grasped his wrist with his other, clenching his jaw as he held his breath and moved forward, careful and somehow already knowing his suspicions would be proven right. Luke didn’t retreat, didn’t move, didn’t even wince as the tip of the red saber skewered his chest. It moved effortlessly though him as if through air.

_How he had been this fooled?! How had he still been this blinded by the impulse for revenge to not even have noticed Rey’s absence..?_

“If you’re not here.. Then where are you?” Ben bit out, desperate to find out, to mend his mistake, a mistake he prayed would not prove fatal for Rey and him.

“I finally decided to answer my sister’s call for help.”

The answer made him stagger, saber plummeting out of his grasp, gouging the cave floor and filling all of the confined space around them with its voracious crackling. “But.. That’s not possible..” he muttered, disbelief widening his eyes. _She had died_.. _Got sucked into space.._

“You thought she was gone?” Luke instantly saw through him, concern etched on his face before something akin to hope replaced it, “Even though you couldn’t bring yourself to kill her too.”

At once the image of his father falling into that devouring depth as he pushed him towards death seemed to be everywhere, outside of him, inside of him, in his mind and projected on the cavernous walls.

Ben flung out an arm, fingers sprawled then contracting, bringing part of the cave down with it as his uncle mercifully dissolved in a rain of debris.


	15. Chapter 15

**A/N: Howdy~ Lots of rainbows and unicorns for everyone who fleft kudos! :D Thanks~ 3  
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Chapter 15

At the thundering sound of rock cracking, _collapsing_ , Rey scrambled back to the steps, her entranced gaze ripped away from the swirling ocean crashing against the serrated rocks below. She sprinted towards the source of the ominous rumble, the absolute quiet it had left in its wake even louder and more forbidding.

The moment she pelted inside the cave she swallowed a lungful of dust that was still settling down. She coughed, skidding to a halt and frantically searching for any sign of life. She felt Ben's signature, a turbulent and agitated throbbing, before her eyes adjusted to the dim cave that had its other opening sealed off by an avalanche of fractured rocks. Then she finally saw him, his contours gaining clarity as the haze of dust grew thinner.

Rey rushed forward, one hand grabbing a hold of him as he leaned against the damp, cold and uneven surface of the cavern wall, the concern in her eyes instantly directed at him asking the question burning on her lips without utterance. Ben snarled like a wounded animal, avoiding to look at her directly in response. His scar was more pronounced, like a vein of ink running across his face, his eyes a storm of deep, turmoiled brown.

"It wasn't him. Only a projection." he bit out almost petulantly, the undeniable greatness of that feat seemed to fill him with a shuddering repulsion, "We got here too late. He must have left mere hours before us."

Ben's fist made rough contact with the wall in his evident frustration and he leaned even more into it. Feeling ill-adept at assuaging his anger, Rey simply rubbed his other arm, offering a least a little bit of anchorage as she perceived how the turbulent emotion was wrought with a budding sense of regret that he would never admit out loud. That he wouldn't be likely to allow her to voice either.

"His x-wing. I saw it before. It isn't here anymore. It was gone." she informed him, trying to keep her tone neutral and in control, "I can't believe he managed to lift it from the water. That after all these years it could still fly.."

Her own awe so much less bitter accidentally slipped through, making him visibly cringe. He stirred, trying to move away and in the process his foot kicked against something solid that grated the floor as it span away.

Being closer to the black saber, Rey reached it with a few steps. She knelt down to pick it up as it still revolved languidly around itself. She stretched out a hand towards it then hesitated at the sudden memory sparked to life by the gesture. When she had touched Skywalker's lightsaber in the basement of Maz's castle it had morphed reality around her into a frightening barrage of unrefined visions. She didn't much care for a repetition of that reeling sensation.

Swirling stopped and appearing deceptively innocent, Ben's saber emanated a dark energy that belied its sleek and yet crude design. There was something untamed about it and she swore she could feel it call to that pitiless and seemingly bottomless hole down at the core of the island. Or rather the pit of darkness was calling it much like it had called her; had dragged her in. It was calling her too. _Still.._

But how could that darkness still exude its pull on her? She had faced it already, hadn't she? Had gotten away from its clutches..

She shook off the unsettling feeling, forced herself to believe it was nothing, just a figment of her imagination or an echo of the trying experience reverberating through her with her return. Rey clenched her jaw warily then determinedly closed her fingers around the hilt. Despite the coolness of the stone on which it had lain it was warm to the touch, channeling the always ravaging power inside the weapon which was waiting for a chance to tear; bite; devour; _strike_..

Unbending her knees and back, Rey was at his side in an instant, offering the saber to him a little hurriedly, clearly wanting to get rid of it. Ben looked at her pensively, brows furrowed and eyes unfathomable. His expression was closer to knowing than to genuine surprise it seemed.

Whichever it was, she was relieved when he decided not to ask her anything and instead took it silently. He attached it to his belt, Rey could almost feel the greedy spike of energy it gave now it had been returned to its rightful owner.

"Rey.." he eventually made her attention shift to his face. She could see he was close to confronting her after all but then swallowed as a shadow passed over his face and he seemed either unable or unwilling to go through with it.

"If.. If Master Skywalker wasn't here, then where has he gone-"

"Crait." he filled in for her, eyes shooting up to find hers and flashing a cold fury. She wasn't sure if the bitterness tinging that one word was due to his uncle's destination or the fact that she had so obviously avoided talking about the effect his saber had on her. Not that it seemed to matter anymore when at this very moment Master Skywalker was heading back to a sister embroiled in a war that wasn't a war anymore. A war that probably wouldn't be won even with him joining her side. And they would have no choice but to pursue him there. It made her worried and hopeful at the same time.

She made her lungs swell with air, steeling her resolve as she let her hands wander over the folds in his tunic, "Then we will also leave for Crait. Tomorrow."

Nearly all agitation gone in an instant, Ben frowned a little at the non-urgency of her statement, prompting her to reply in quasi-nonchalance, "At least the Force has favored us with a place in which time is a little more plentiful. We can eat. Get some rest. Come up with a plan.. We leave at first light."

She took herself by surprise with the unfamiliar authority in her tone. As scared as she was that this was going to go different from how she wanted it to go, it also felt like a very tempting second change to help the Resistance get off Crait. They needed to get this right. If they did, her friends, the first people to ever take her in and value her, might manage to go underground with a bit of luck. Lay low until the tide turned.

There was a hint of pride in the enticing grin tugging at Ben's lips as he wrapped his arms around her waist, "Whatever my Empress commands."

His kiss on her forehead still burning her skin, they returned to the settlement; the sky overhead a deep purple now. The caretakers were still nowhere to be seen, maybe with the temple burned down they had left the island, exchanged it for another. Without the amphibian-like being's opposition they chose a hut that stood close to another which sheltered it against most of the wind so it didn't howl through the crevices and creaks so much.

They ate the moment they had got a small fire going which casted the bluntly hewn bricks in an orange glow and dancing shadows. Far from tasteful, the food cubes she had packed made her instantly miss Azi's culinary delights. The realization made Rey grin to herself. _How had she gone this rapidly from hungry Jakku scavenger licking ever crumb of the scanty meal earned from her plate to spoiled royal invited to taste every exquisite flavor the galaxy had to offer?_

"Less of a Gundark with these." Ben remarked smartly with a nudge of his chin towards her and her only slowly emptying plate of cubes, effortlessly catching her inner amusement.

"These taste fouler than portion bread." she answered indignantly through exaggerated chewing and with an air as if that comparison alone settled the matter.

"Just remind me to bring the droid next time." Rey added, getting to her feet and placing her plate just outside of the hut in the hopes of attracting a stray porg with an appetite. Not that she was sure the local birds would deem the handful of left over cubes the treat she meant it to be.

Ben scoffed in feigned annoyance, muttering a grumbled, "I think I might accidentally forget to.." and rose too.

"Where are you going?" she stared at him, puzzled, as he stepped over the threshold and cast a surveying look around the darkening island.

"I'll take first watch." he stated, following it up with a low but resolute, "Sleep."

(…)

Her soft snores drifting outside to where he sat cross-legged and wide awake were a welcome and soothing presence. Ben quietly listened to the peaceful sound, staring up at the star-strewn night sky overhead. His thoughts traveled passed all the pinpricks of light, fixed at the prospect of going to Crait and what he hoped wouldn't but which he knew _would_ turn into a confrontation. A fight. _A battle.._ Despite the fact that it wouldn't involve legions of troopers and war instruments matching that magnitude, not that they still possessed those vast numbers, the small scale of the what now seemed the inevitable encounter would matter little if the outcome could be of much larger impact.

He knew Rey had been lying awake for a while, probably pondering over the same potential scenarios. As long as they would end up with one that would make her stay, that would keep them in power he cared little for the long-term ramifications for the Resistance. Ultimately, _they_ weren't the ones that would usher in a New Era..

Reigning in his almost feverish zeal he forced his attention back on the quiet snores. She had been sleeping for some hours now. He should probably wake her soon. But a part of him, the _bigger_ part of him, just couldn't bring himself to disturb her rest. He probably wouldn't find any here even if he did lie down. Maybe he would just close his eyes and meditate, that would replenish him more, it usually did, its state of calm mercifully came without dreams most of the time, and it allowed him to remain more watchful of his surroundings too.

Not that he truly believed they were in danger of anything or anyone attacking them here, on this forgotten piece of rock that even the ocean had neglected to swallow. Maybe the island had resisted to perish like that. It contained enough Light and Dark to last eons longer. He wasn't sure how that made him feel. At least he had gotten used to the pull to the black abyss that waited somewhere deep inside of this place. He had gotten used to live with that a long time ago. What worried him, what had worried him before, was that it pulled at Rey too. Maybe even more. Another reason why it was better to let her sleep and deprive himself of it a little longer.

Even though he wouldn't be sorry to leave when the morning came, the relative solitude had an embalming sort of effect, even on him. Maybe especially on him. A temporary reprieve, not escape, from the pressing responsibilities and dull tasks organizing a fledgling Empire entailed. With Rey being a silent but present companion, the only visitor he had gotten had been a chubby, wobbling bird.

It had nibbled on Rey's food cubes and spat it out again almost instantly in evident disgust before stupidly proceeding to sample the next. And the next. And the next. Every single try resulting in the same look of utter revolt which made its eyes bulge even more. Thankfully its squawks had been muffled by the food in its beak and it hadn't woken Rey as Ben feared it might. Soon enough it had retreated to what he supposed would be its nest, sending him one last curious glance and then tottering away again until the night swallowed its plump form.

Not wanting to resume the endless circle of contemplating tomorrow and what they could possibly have to face after it, Ben relaxed his posture; legs straightening a little, back tilted against the hut so he could feel the warmth of the fire. He lazily stretched out a hand, manipulating the Force as if he had it tied with strings to his fingertips. The pebble-sized grit that had been a hut responded obediently, first lifting from the ground like gray hailstones that were falling towards the sky instead of the ground, it soon floated in mid-air like a swarm, each piece of tiny rubble tumbling and rising in a rhythm he determined.

"She'll get that from you then.." her drowsy voice said from behind him in a mock accusatory tone that simultaneously held more warmth than the fire did against his back.

The grit immediately escaped his grasp, raining down to join the larger debris with sharp _tip_ _tip_ _tips_ ; he could suddenly see a seashell in every single one of them along with the small hand that had guided them. _Would_ guide them.

Understanding of the full extent of what she had just said widened her eyes for a split second, all sleepiness gone with it. She blinked, eyelashes beating erratically against her reddening cheekbones, her reaction making his heart cadence in a wild thrum.

"I thought you didn't believe me." the echo of that conviction almost shattered his voice, he balled his fists to contain the tremor shooting through him.

Rey ducked her head, shifting her cloak so it rippled around her shoulders as she gathered it there, "I.. I do now. I want to believe in her. In.." she wavered, then dispelled the hesitation with the ghost of small lights gleaming in the amber pools of her eyes as they looked up to lock with his, "In _us_.."

He feared his ribs might crack under the pressure his heart was exerting against them, it throbbed in almost painful beats now. Ben swallowed hard, trying to release his voice from his throat, "Once all of this is over.. You _will_." he huffed a little grimly at the command his urge to speak had turned those words into, and added less fervently, correcting himself, "I _hope_ you will."

A small, careful smile played across her mouth, and she dipped her chin in acknowledgement. Then she got to her feet, sat down beside him and gazed at the no longer air-born grit as if she saw more, _beyond_ it.

Her hand reached out, fingers sprawled, "Teach me."

The demand elicited a powerful thrill to run up and down his spine. He held back on the grin that curled around his lips, instead suggesting stoically, "Why don't you try by yourself first?"

Surprise briefly flashed across her face, then she flicked him a challenging look that didn't quite reach her eyes, averted her attention back to the motionless pebbles, took a deep breath, and obeyed.

(…)

He woke up, his body a little sore and cold. Rey was stirring next to him, the weight of her head lifting from his shoulder. They had eventually fallen asleep with their backs against the hut, not just grit but bigger chunks of debris scattered outward from their feet; a testimony of Rey's perseverance. _Stubbornness_. Ben amended internally, recalling her untiring determination to succeed. It had worked. She was far from executing perfect control but she had managed to lift the rocks separately until her mind seemed to remember their weight and that more than anything broke her concentration and caused them to crash to the ground with heavy thuds. Maybe the memory of it would be the only thing that he would want to take with him from this tiny speck of land.

They had soon gathered their things in silence and made for the shuttle that glinted in the meager rays of a sun sluggish to rise. He got in the pilot's seat this time, hands moving across it with the ease of experience. The ramp hissed close seamlessly and an instant later they took off. Ben could feel the pang of sadness spreading in her chest; for what they had to do, had half-agreed and resigned to do, and for what they were leaving behind.

"We might return." he offered as they sped into space, engines whirring as the necessary energy convoluted in them, "We probably have to because I'm not sure yet I understand the charms of this island of your dreams.."

This provoked a faint smile that all too soon vanished from her face again as an alert flared among the controls. A pale hologram of General Hux erupted from the console, it hovered at the level of the viewport, distorting the backdrop of stars every second it refreshed.

" _Emperor?!_ " Hux addressed him in an exasperated snap, "Where have you been? We have been trying to reach you for-"

"We left to fulfill the conceited promise you made on our behalf." Ben spitefully lashed out in return, causing the General to stiffen, taut lips twitching tellingly.

"Although I am glad to learn our priorities so aligned, why was I not informed of your departure? As our leader I need to know your location at all times. How else am I going to ensure your safety?" Hux spat back, riled. Ben only glared at him, prompting him to resume in a barely restrained sneer, "We received a distress signal from the Titan. It would seem it is currently being besieged by.. By a single fighter."

It was clear from the way the lines in his sharp face flexed that it cost the General all of his considerable self-control to not betray his evident chagrin; last time a similar scenario had cost them a dreadnought… _And_ chipped his reputation. Ben allowed for a short but meaningful silence, speaking only when it had its desired vexatious effect on Hux.

"Luke.." he mumbled, purposefully mystified.

" _Skywalker_?" Hux queried warily, if the holographic quality had allowed for it, it would have shown his face blanching.

"I hope that's not cowardice I hear, General. I thought you would rejoice for an opportunity to show our superiority to our most fervid supporters by capturing him right from under the rebels' noses."

"Of course not, Emperor." he retorted indignantly, cold eyes flashing, "In fact, it would be my honor to perform the task myself-"

"We shall see whose honor it will befall to." Ben reminded him acidly, then added a series of clipped commands, "For now board a shuttle to the Titan. Take Ika Ren with you. And bring me my TIE Silencer."

Grinding the implied rebuke between his clenched jaw, Hux's posture stiffened with formality and pretended obedience, "Very we-"

Ben disinterestedly cut off the transmission and the General's last word with it. For a moment there was utter silence save for the engines, roiling with pent up energy impatient to be released.

"We knew we couldn't get there before him," he eventually voiced what they were both thinking, "and with it lose the chance to keep most of the First Order and its followers in the dark. Hux was bound to be made aware of the situation."

"I can't stand that man." Rey simply muttered darkly in response, "A polished, uniformed version of Unkar Plutt. He might look like the exact opposite, but he's just as rotten on the inside.."

"Compared to Hux I bet this Plutt of yours would be as dangerous as a skor-fin washed ashore.."

She furrowed her brows at him, appreciative but also utterly nonplussed about the comparison. Then her expression grew sterner again as his hand moved to hover over the engines ignition controls.

"I'll find Master Skywalker first." she pledged, sitting straighter in her seat and determination glinting from the depths of her eyes.

"You will. And that is our only goal. The others are of no concern. You heard Lady Varess, they're a symbolic threat only that we can exploit to rally and maintain more support. They're of more worth to us alive than dead. Once we've established a firm grip we can turn the tables, make the First Order do what we want it to do, serve who we want it to serve."

She nodded, tentatively, her gaze fixed on the stars with fragile certainty. They elongated, turned into ribbons of light, bathing the shuttle in the harsh hue of lightyears flashing passed.

They dropped out of hyperspace what felt like the very next instant. Impervious to the chaos they came upon, their shuttle zoomed gracefully closer to the Titan. The Star Destroyer appeared severely crippled but not lethally wounded. It listlessly bled fire and small debris and hovered menacingly above Crait.

Seeing the mineral planet forcefully brought home his mistake in believing his mother had died. He hadn't told Rey. He didn't know why he hadn't. But then he also didn't know how the revelation that she hadn't perished made him feel. If it made him feel anything. What it meant that he hadn't pulled the trigger. If it meant anything at all..

As long as he didn't have to take her prisoner too he supposed it would matter little either way. If she chose to continue to thwart and resist then she delivered herself at the First Order's mercy. It was his uncle they had come for. _His uncle who had foolishly challenged and lured them and the First Order's wrathful gaze here_ , Ben thought wryly.

He docked the shuttle within the Titan's ventral flight decks which appeared mostly undamaged. Captain Vaughan strode towards them as fast as her feet could carry her. Despite the catastrophe nothing in her immaculate and crisp appearance betrayed her distress. Except perhaps for the brown bun hanging limply in the nape of her neck, strands sticking out at unauthorized angles.

Not particularly interested in her excuses and profuse apologies Ben dismissed her as soon as he had extracted all the valid information they could possibly need and around that time Hux arrived and with him Ben's least favorite but necessary part of their plan.

He hated sending Rey away with his Knight and the General. He forced himself to not look back and watch as they boarded the assault lander destined for Crait's wasteland surface. Banning everything else from his mind, solely keeping the mission and his connection with Rey alive, he stalked towards his Silencer.

Ben latched onto her reassuring presence in the Force, sensing her reciprocating probe in his direction, as he sped off, soon breaking through the orbit with a dozen TIE fighters trailing him at a respectful –or cowardly– distance. As expected their approach triggered a defensive strike by the rebels. A _desperate_ strike. One that he had banked on would make them realize there was no other way out but through a back door, which they predicted would spark Luke's heroic tendencies in the process and make it easier for Rey to locate him. The quicker those decrepit ski-speeders retreated the better. For all of their sakes. If the Resistance –if it could still even be called that– was smart they would make use of that minute time frame the distraction of Skywalker's insipid altruism would provide. It would be their _only_ chance.

Silencer responding instantly to each subtle touch, Ben swerved through the air, shooting to disable, not kill. It was long since he had deployed that strategy. It didn't mean he couldn't hunt those rust, flightless carcasses, push them to break their shoddy formation and resort to crisscrossing frantically across the salt-covered surface; causing great red dust clouds to billow skywards to ruin nothing but their own visibility.

There was no hiding that way from his superior scanners. All around him the TIEs mimicked his lead and took the pathetic speeders out with efficient precision, adhering dutifully to their strict orders to toy with their prey, delay their fatal demise to demoralize a galaxy watching and make them an example, a show of just how deluded and suicidal disrupting the onward march of the First Order was.

Ben had just crippled another speeder when his attention was drawn away from its wavering trajectory. The assault lander had touched down close to the massive door and people were spilling out in rigid rows behind three darker clad figures. _Rey.._

His fighter wailed a proximity alert and he instinctively sent it in a spin, aggressive more than evasive. It only took one flurry of his laser canons to tear the speeder apart; it still skidded and hurled uncontrollably across the surface when his eye found something else. A downed ship that had left a trail of wreckage and disturbed salt in its wake. _A freighter he would still recognize if he had lost more than half its parts.._

Wholly distracted a second speeder managed to take aim. Less than a split second later a lucky shot clipped his wing.

Ben whirled the Silencer around as it spun wildly, rammed into the guilty speeder, shot upwards again then sputtered and plummeted towards the ground with deadly speed..


	16. Chapter 16

**A/N: Thanks for the kudos everyone, they're much appreciated, and shout-out to evie for leaving a comment~ 3**

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Chapter 16

The salt plains were a sight Rey was sure she wouldn’t quickly forget. She was familiar with wastelands, with vast deserts and horizons that shimmered enticingly but never seemed to get any closer. Crait, however, was a wide, flat, hopeless expanse of blinding white with no point of reference except for the massive, steel door of the abandoned mining base. It loomed over her as she neared it, ominous and unyielding.

On either side of her, a mere step or two behind, were Ika Ren and General Hux, their dark clothes a glaring mismatch with the planet’s surface. The Stormtroopers following in their wake in disciplined units blended in a lot better but with no cover available they weren’t any less exposed.

Rey strode on, nerves and determination pooling in the pit of her stomach while the telltale screech of TIEs grated her ears as they tore through the sky. It was hard to look away from the inevitable clash between the ski-speeders and the First Order’s superior fighters; she hated an unfair fight and the odds had perhaps never been more against the Resistance as they were now. Not that the current crippled state of the Titan, nothing more than a pale, oddly tilted specter overhead, was a reliable indication of that.

_It’s what happened when a living legend entered the fray_.. _A legend she was seeking to capture_..  

It wasn’t a trade she had wanted to make, but it seemed the only way out for the remnant of the Resistance; as long as Master Skywalker wasn’t there to light their spark then the First Order wouldn’t see a need to eradicate every last one of them.

_At least in their custody she would be able to keep him safe and close_..

The back of her neck prickled and Rey chanced a glance upwards, feeling more than being able to discern Ben’s Silencer as it cut through the air high above. She wasn’t doing this alone. If all went well then the dozen Resistance fighters would have no choice but to retreat. To flee. And if she succeeded in creating enough of a distraction with finding Master Skywalker then the both of them could fulfill their true mission; give Leia, Finn, Chewie, _whoever_ was left, a chance to escape.

It was hard to avert her gaze again from the predatory, sleek ship; to not reach out and cling to Ben’s reassuring signature. She had to  trust him to perform his part. She had to focus on hers.

General Hux didn’t even have to give the verbal order for the Stormtroopers to obey, they acted fluidly on protocol and intensive, life-long training alone. Moving with seamless precision they fanned out, some of them forming a protective shield in front of their leaders while the others executed the assault swiftly and silently.

The trenches were cleared out with meticulous efficiency. It didn’t take long. There hadn’t been a lot of fighters hiding in them and the First Order’s overwhelming numbers as well as the ski-speeders beginning their retreat had soon driven most of them inside the base. Rey didn’t dare look at the handful of rebels that lay sprawled and lifeless on the ground. Dread filling her more every step she took closer to the door that she would recognize their faces.

When she stood still in front of the towering and solid structure all movement had ceased; not a sound drifted outside from the base through the crack running under the door. It hadn’t closed entirely. It wasn’t hard to guess at the reason for that. To her right an old, familiar X-wing had gotten stuck underneath the steel. Roof almost entirely scraped off by the impossible landing, the vessel had gotten half crushed under the weight but left just enough room for a small person to crawl under. It wouldn’t do for the Stormtroopers though, not with their inflexible armor and the weapons they carried.

“Lifting rocks..” Rey mumbled warily under her breath, hoping that trying to create a bigger opening would, in theory at least, work roughly the same way.

Grinding her jaw in concentration she stretched out both hands, channeling all of her concentration on detecting the Force that flowed all around; that surrounded and moved through the heavily damaged X-wing and the door trapping it in place. It took an enormous effort to tap into the Force, to make it respond to her and to will the door to move. But, at first, nothing happened. Sweat pearled on her temples, her fingers contorted as she had to exert extreme power and control. Still nothing. Then she remembered. Every time her mind had caught up to what she was trying to do with lifting those pieces of rubble she had failed. Ben had instructed her to close her eyes; to see but not through her senses.

She let out a deep, reinvigorating breath, completely ignoring the General’s increasingly more demanding insistence to let his troopers and their range of high-tech explosives deal with it, and tried again. It took another agonizingly long moment but then, with a reverberating groan, the door moved upwards, jarringly, slowly, but at last submitting to her stubborn zeal.

General Hux’s words trailed off in what she suspected was involuntary awe, then he quickly regained his composure and barked orders in his cruel, staccato voice. Stormtroopers hurriedly entered the base, flooding inside with their heads ducked and weapons cradled and ready. Rey had only just passed underneath the door when her trembling hands had to relinquish their wavering hold on the Force and it crashed down with a deafening grunt, reducing the X-wing to a tired carcass of flattened steel.

Plunged into almost total darkness, lights on helmets and blasters were switched on so that columns of light penetrated the thick dimness. A split second later chaos ensued when laser fire erupted from the depths of the dark, junk-filled hangar, adding streaks of hellish blue to the colorless beams pouring from the Stormtroopers’ equipment.

Rey’s heart sank. She had hoped it wouldn’t come to this. That they would fall back already; give up so they could live another day, she had expected as much from Leia’s style of command too. Frustration and fear took over. She shouted at the Stormtroopers to hold their fire now the fiery red flared from their weapons in retaliation. They hesitated to comply. She couldn’t even blame them. The order must seem highly counterintuitive and illogical.

This time she raised one arm and pushed her hand forward, palm outwards. Connecting to and controlling the web of the Force all around came quicker than it had with the door. She focused all of it on the bursts of hot energy filling the hangar. Laser bolts froze in midair, elongated blurs of red that whizzed and crackled. Rey bit her lip, close to panic as she realized just how draining it was to contain all of the firepower aimed towards her; and more kept gushing out from the rebel’s dated blasters too.

_They didn’t recognize her.._ Maybe that shouldn’t shock her. After all, with her present sinister company and a long, black cloak covering most of her they would be hard pressed to see it was her. What was more, she couldn’t distinguish Leia’s warm pulse of energy. Or Finn’s flickering spark. _Had they gone deeper into the base already? Had they simply happened upon the last group of stragglers?_

And then, just when she felt a bolt would break through at any moment and shatter her effort to hold all of them back, strength flowed back into her as well as towards the strangely suspended rays. Their violent quivering stabilized and it was like their destructive energy slowly but gradually inverted.

Rey blinked, confused, unsure of what was happening. Then she noticed the slender figure of Ika Ren next to her. She hadn’t lifted an arm but the way she stood rooted to the spot and the subtle, almost imperceptible stretching out of her gloved fingers were indication enough. She was helping her. Inconspicuously. But definitely helping her. Deftly lending her strength, adding her own to the task in such a way to not reveal just how much it cost Rey to perform the feat. How she couldn’t do it without the Knight.

_Had Ben commanded Ika Ren to help? To assist? To protect her? But from whom? The Resistance barely posed a threat as sad as that made her. From the General then? From both_..?       

New fire ceased to be added. There was a silence, uneasy and charged. Next instant Rey gave the Knight flanking her a quick nod once she sensed rather than saw that their assailants were slipping away one by one. A second later they both released their grip on the myriad of laser bolts. She could only just repress the reflex to either duck or squeeze her eyes shut at the expected impact but her perceptions had been correct. Their trajectories reversed the red bolts hammered the crates the rebels had been hiding behind, leaving scorch marks and gaping holes in them.   

“You wish us to pursue?” General Hux enquired in a tone bordering on bored indifference as he strode over to her, Stormtroopers hastily parting to let him through, some of them still hunkered down or sticking to the cover provided by run down transports and abandoned mining equipment.

Rey threw him a scathing look, the malicious delight oozing from him at the prospect sickened her. Interpreting her glare as disapproval of his urgency only and not his intent, the General flashed her an apologetic grin and amended, “Of course, we could also withhold from hunting them like rats in a sewer. Surely they would make much better sport with a head start..”  

Nails digging into her palm as she balled her fists in anger, Rey was on the verge of retorting when her eyes were drawn to Ika Ren instead. She stood to the side, only a few paces behind the General, and for a brief moment her hand rested on the armored shoulder of a Stormtrooper who was kneeling besides a soldier that in every regard resembled him except for the fact that he was unmistakably dead. The Knight’s hand gently slid off again and she meandered further between other fallen soldiers, expression safely hidden behind her silver cobwebbed mask but her energy in the Force deliberately veiled too.

Struck by the gesture of support, of _kindness_ , Rey’s ire at General Hux’s remark temporarily subsided. Before she could truly register what it was she had witnessed and avert her attention back to the infuriating man facing her, the Force spiked in intensity. Their bond pulled taut, a tremor traveled through it, and Rey felt the drag of gravity press in on her as if she was with him in his Silencer that spiraled down in a fatal arc..      

_Ben!!_

(…)

Her voice pierced his mind and bounced against the inside of his skull like faint, far away echoes. He couldn’t answer. He needed all of his concentration to try and regain full control of his ship. And he wasn’t having a lot of success. Blood was pounding against his temples and the pressure on his ears was building rapidly. His heartrate, on the other hand, had slowed to a loud, slow and wary drum as if it anticipated to be silenced soon. 

Drawing on the Force, Ben used it to propel the Silencer out of its dead-end trajectory. It made just enough difference to have it spin wildly so that its course took a sharp curve and it was tipped parallel to the ground. He was still going too fast though. Once again calling upon the Force he gathered it to capsulate the hull as it inevitably made contact with the surface.

The impact rattled his bones, shook his frame and his head slammed hard against the control board. Jolting and shuddering the Silencer scraped across the salt, white crystals like snow billowing outwards all around him and peppering his viewport. With a final lurch the ship turned around its own axis, nearly toppled, then came to a sudden, jarring halt.

Dazed and feeling warm blood trickle down his forehead, Ben willed his body to move. Force pushing the hatch out of its hinges it hurled out of sight before it hit the ground somewhere with a deafening crash. He staggered to get to his feet and crawled out, knees hitting the salt-covered surface as it rushed towards him; he only just in time caught himself, palms crushing into the ground.

Surroundings flitting in and out of focus he took a few steadying breaths then pushed himself to his feet, ignoring the drops of blood obscuring his vision. He swayed but managed to take a few steps away from the wreckage when lines became less blurred and he could make out the Falcon up ahead. It was in an even worse state than his Silencer. The same was true for the ski-speeder he had rammed after it had already accomplished its goal. It had left an equally crimson trail in its wake.

An all consuming anger flaring up and a surge of adrenaline pumping through his system almost made him deaf to Rey’s continued and desperate pulls at their bond.

_I’m here._ He finally answered, the effort of projecting his voice in her mind a lot harder than it should be and making him stagger again as he, spotting movement, set out towards the speeder first.

_Ben! What happened??_

Her worry seeped into his own veins, he could almost taste her fear for his safety on his own tongue where it mingled with the bitter twang of blood.

_Crashed._ He reported tersely, pride hurt and frustration at his own failure growing.

She seemed to pick up on his unwillingness to elaborate, there was a brief, breathless silence and then, _Are you hurt?_

He shook his head, realized it was a pointless thing to do and said, _No._

She deserved more than that answer. He could feel her concern still burning a hole in her chest. He forced himself to sound more calm and reassuring, _It’s nothing. Just a little groggy from the impact. I’ll be okay.._

There was a tentative wave of relief that washed over her now; he wasn’t sure he would ever get used to the overwhelming feeling of someone experiencing his peril and injuries as their own.

_You?_ He inquired cautiously, probing the state of her body as much as the distance between them would allow for it. As much as _she_ would allow for it. 

_Better than you are_ , she replied, sarcasm tinted with that same, growing relief.

_I expected nothing less._

_Of course you didn’t._

A silence, soothing despite the current situation and hard to want to break. _Rey?_

_Yes.._

_Be on your guard. I’ll be there as soon as I can._

Something he couldn’t quite identify spilled over their connection from her side to his, then a solemn and curt, _I will_.

Rey retreated from his mind, leaving it emptier and heavier at the same time. He set out, determined not to be held up long by what he had to do. What he couldn’t walk away from doing even though he knew he probably should.

The rebel was barely conscious, trapped and it seemed entwined with the speeder’s twisted steel. His injuries were so severe he would have minutes left at most. Splintered bone stuck out of his arm where his elbow used to be and his face was covered with blood. At his approach the young man’s eyes widened, Ben could sense how scared he was of him. Felt his heart’s frantic hammering and the stabs of searing agony as his uncontrollable shivering made his body skewer itself even more on a shaft of broken metal. He moaned in pain and panic, a gurgle that turned into a grating cough which caused more blood to cascade over his lips.

Ben stood still, gaze not leaving the young man’s face, and reached out with a hand. For the briefest of moments he hesitated. Was of half a mind to fight the urge to kill him. Then hatred old and familiar surged through him and he closed his hand into a fist, crushing the speeder and its pilot with it. A final cry of anguish left the man’s lungs, then it was over. 

Not wanting to see the hollow expression in his lifeless, tormented eyes, Ben resolutely walked on; grinding any sense of guilt and regret under his boots with every step he took. _If Rey found out.. If he ever told her.._ He could say he had killed that man out of pity. _Compassion_. To end his misery. He knew better. Maybe she would too. He had killed him to settle the score. To punish him for bringing down his Silencer and him with it. Because this man had made him crash he had to pay the price that went with it. He had just made sure that he had.   

Quenching the trepidation welling up inside of him as he neared the Falcon, the blood staining his hands without leaving a visible trace was wiped from his mind at least as a barrage of memories hit him. He drew his saber, refraining from igniting it though his fingers itched to do so. To tear apart the freighter he entered until nothing was left of it. With nothing but the dull thuds of his heavy boots travelling through the winding corridors Ben made his way through the ship. It reminded him of too much. Of a future that would never be. Of a past he hated. Of a man he had killed. Of a father-

He increased his pace, stalking restlessly through the freighter, goaded on by memories both repressed and endlessly relived. He had been so young then. So _naive_. None of that mattered now. Not anymore. If he still wanted to kill his past, this ship would not be able to escape its fate any longer.

Without consciously guiding himself there Ben found himself in the cockpit, its viewport shattered and nothing more than a dented frame of steel and shards of glass clinging to it. The chairs were empty. Abandoned. Even the golden dice weren’t there anymore. Chance. _Luck_. Han Solo’s foolish creed had died with him. And so must his ship. He couldn’t breathe in here. Couldn’t _live_. He needed to be free from it. From the constant pain that the memories held hostage by this ship had caused him. _Still_ caused him.

He clipped his saber back onto his belt; it had been trembling in his hold. He would destroy this, all of this, in a different, more effective way. Jaw clenched, he cursed his heart for swelling painfully as he retraced his steps as if it was aware it would be the last time he ever saw this piece of junk. He stalked back to the ramp that hung loosely over the small, shallow crater the crash had gauged into the ground. He had already passed the lounge when he fully registered the out of place objects scattered across its matted, dirty and now canted floor.

He went back, reluctant and pulled in at the same time. The drawer had been flung open. It must have happened during the crash. It had always happened during rough landings, causing his handwritten star charts and speeder models to fly out across the room; he used to wait for that moment, lying in the padded alcove pretending to be asleep and catching the items hurdled towards him, making them weightless with the Force and guiding them right back.

Heart throbbing in his throat Ben crouched, picking up one of the books lying haphazardly at his feet. A shudder went through him as his fingers recognized the touch of the cover of gnarled but smooth wood; as they traced the ancient signs carved out in it.

_The sacred Jedi texts…_


	17. Chapter 17

**A/N: Thanks for the kudos~ Hope you enjoy the next chapter and I'd love to know your thoughts~ 3**

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Chapter 17

Half turned away from him Rey could nonetheless feel General Hux’s scrutinizing gaze fixed relentlessly on her. There was something unsettling about the way he observed her as she became fully aware again of her surroundings, as if he was deciphering her behavior into something he could gain a strategic advantage from.

“Is it the Emperor-” he made to ask, but Rey deliberately swiveled so her back was towards him, effectively cutting him off. Of a mind to address the Knight instead she didn’t get far when his voice suddenly rang out from behind her, dripped in a triumphant disdain.

“Ah. Right on cue. Wouldn’t you say, Empress?”

She pivoted around, eyes boring into the General but he was no longer looking at her. Nerves spiking instantly Rey followed his line of vision until she discerned with a powerful jolt shooting up her spine the single robed man among the shadows.

_Master Skywalker!_

How had she not noticed his presence sooner?! It _was_ him this time. Not a projection, but him. Then why did his energy fluctuate like it did? _Waver_..

With a meaningful stare in her direction Master Skywalker dipped his chin as if in acknowledgement or recognition, then turned on his heels and disappeared into the maze of tunnels from which he had come.

“Ika.”

The Knight was at her side in an instant, her erratic signature betraying the turmoil she felt at seeing her former Master after what must have been over a decade. She quickly repressed it though and asked all calm alertness, “Yes, Empress?”

“Secure the hangar and control room. And try to creak open that door. By whatever means necessary.”

Ika Ren bowed and made to excuse herself when Rey, remembering her observations earlier, added in a softer tone, “See to the evacuation of the wounded too.”

She stiffened a little as if exposed, the walls around her mind quavering for the briefest of moments before slipping back into place again, solid and impenetrable like her glinting mask.

“Yes, Empress. It will be done.”

After another quick but not less reverent bow the Knight left to do her bidding. Rey watched her go then, reprimanding herself inwardly for wasting time, set out after Skywalker.

“Empress? Surely you don’t mean to capture him on your own?” Hux called after her, disapproval and incredulity clear in his curt voice.

“Stay.” she snapped back over her shoulder, not intending to halt and face him.

“My Empress! With all due respect,” he caught up to her, his purposeful and determined steps matching her own.

“I don’t need your assistance, General.” she told him, warningly.

“Nevertheless, I would strongly advice against proceeding alone without the protection your status requires. I would consider it nothing short of negligence of duty. Akin to treason in fact.”

She was stopped in her tracks by the stinging and misplaced accusation. General Hux met her measuring gaze with his own cold and piercing glower. Her blood was boiling and her heart hammering impatiently against her ribs. She didn’t have time for this and yet she couldn’t think of a way to get rid off him without raising suspicion. As much as she hated being in her current predicament, it was vital she convinced the First Order once and for all that they had better not doubt their new Empress. It was a role she still felt particularly bad at but a role she had to pull off all the same.

“Follow me at a distance. A _considerable_ distance.” she put acid emphasis on the word, expanding her presence in the Force to give her words the weight and threat she wanted them to convey, “And don’t interfere.”

The General jutted out his chin haughtily, blue eyes blazing but he kept the scorn from his acquiescent answer, “As you wish, Empress.”

He motioned for a dozen elite Stormtroopers to follow with an arrogant and aloof snap of his gloved fingers then gestured for her to lead the way with a wave of his hand that was more careless than chivalrous.

Trying to block her irritation from distracting her from her true goal, Rey hurried on. She managed to calm herself down enough to reach out through the Force, a compass of directing energy helping her through the maze in which Master Skywalker had vanished. But he wasn’t gone. She could sense his presence resonate like a beacon; a light to guide her way.

They had gone fairly deep into the bowels of the mines when Rey halted. The path branched off in two different directions. They had passed similar crossroads before but this time a bright and stronger pulse in the Force told her one way would lead to Skywalker, the other would be a dead end.

“Take half of your soldiers and go left. I’ll take the right path.” the ironic truth of that statement almost made her grin but she checked the impulse when General Hux regarded her sternly for a moment before deciding he was in no mood to argue or question her mystifying connection to the world around them to which he himself was utterly blind.

He gave her a stiff bow then bellowed at a handful of Stormtroopers to follow him and was gone. His absence felt instantly liberating and Rey hastened down the other, winding path, all but ignoring the men and women close on her heels.

Soon the tunnel opened up and she almost stumbled into a cavernous space that glittered and shone with large, red crystals crusting every inch of surface available.

Blinking against their collected radiance she took a few, uncertain step forwards then froze when she saw Master Skywalker waiting serenely for her amid the magnificent, coalescent minerals.

(…)

The sound of a vessel passing overhead made him look up from the book in his hand. Impossible as it was to see beyond the gritty ceiling of the Falcon he effortlessly identified the monotonous rumble. It was his shuttle. Captain Vaughn must have monitored the pathetic excuse for a battle’s progress from aboard the Titan. Her ship currently demoted to a rather powerless sentinel had undoubtedly made her eager to make amends for her failure by sending down his shuttle to pick him up now he had allowed himself to be distracted. _Perhaps the damaged state of his Silencer was a just punishment for that mistake_ , Ben grimly thought to himself.

He rose to his feet, decision made a long time ago as he threw the book back to the ground where it flopped clumsily and limply among its equally useless companions. They may have been kept as relics by his uncle, borrowed for safekeeping by Rey in all likelihood, but to him these books represented stifling dogmas, not wisdom. They were the true reason his fellow Padawans had perished and he had gone down this road. But he would be free of them. Rey would too. _Soon_..

There was a sudden, telling flux of the Force that hit him like wave, nearly making him lose his balance. It was Rey. And it was clear from every excited and tense fiber of her being what had just happened. _She had found him_..

Ben swept from the ship, not casting a single glance backward at it as he left it behind for the last time in his life. He made straight for the shuttle just then touching down, a hand lifted to shield it against the salt-ridden dust whirling in his direction. He had barely set foot inside the transport when he called to the pilot in clipped tones, “Take me to the entrance to the mines.”

The shuttle had already left the ground before the ramp slid back into place. He took up position just behind the pilot, tempted to drag the man away from his seat with a subtle pull of the Force and fly himself.

“Sir?” an officer approached him, face pale from trepidation, “What do we do with the enemy freighter?”

Ben shot him a sideways look, causing the man to cower and fight the instinct to screw his eyes tight shut and cradle his head protectively in his hands. He was a fool if he thought that pile of garbage still posed a threat; its reputation might have been known across the galaxy, it didn’t make it invincible. He would see to that. It would be but all too easy.

“Destroy it.” he replied, voice void of emotion as he bit out the words.

“Yes, sir!” the man confirmed, relieved to return to his station and relay his orders. Almost instantly two TIEs separated from the others revolving like a guard around the shuttle. They began their run in perfect unison. A split second later Ben could hear the characteristic, whistling wail of missiles being launched. A silence that lasted a mere heartbeat. Then an earsplitting explosion that got dimmed by the shuttle’s hull. He didn’t need to see it to know the Falcon just got ripped apart by the force of the impact. How it must have morphed into a ball of fire and would soon be nothing more than an unrecognizable heap of smoldering, melted metal.

A tremor ran through him that he knew had nothing to do with his destination. With anything that had happened on Rey’s end. He balled his hands into fists to contain the storm coiling inside of him. He would not feel regret. Not for that ship. _Not for his father_..

“Sir.” the pilot requested his attention with a quick, somewhat nervous look over his shoulder, “Over there.”

Visible from the viewport with the naked eye but not, it seemed, with their instruments, three battered mining transports shot out of the crevices that made up the base’s serrated and natural roof. At closer inspection their hulls glinted a strange, dazzling red; not rust but crystals that must interfere with their scanners Ben scoffed in both irritation and interest at the discovery. He wondered if the traitor had shared his insider’s knowledge of First Order technology to devise that particularly effective and unorthodox strategy.

“Sir?” the pilot repeated, more urgently now seeing the three vessels were flying out of range rapidly.

“They’re of no interest to us. Carry on.”

The pilot nodded once, tore his eyes from the fleeing rebels and guided the shuttle down towards the ground. All of his focus clear and gathered, Ben strode across the ramp the moment they landed. He entered the base through an opening crudely cut out of the massive door by what must have been the combined power of all of the laser cutters they brought with them. He passed Ika Ren without a word even though she sank to one knee at his approach.

“Master.” she called after him, “Empress Rey found him.”

“I know.”

Ika Ren’s hesitation briefly rippled towards him through the Force, then she added reluctantly, “Hux went with her.”

That momentarily stopped him. He gnashed his teeth in resentment, worry sparked inside of him, making his heart race.

“You better not fail me again.” he growled, not even having to look around and face his Knight to know she had understood the possible implication. Leaving her and her palpable remorse behind Ben resumed his way, latching on to those two pinpricks of pure energy he was headed for; one radiant but tense, the other intermittent and weak, both surrounded by a Force unpredictable and yet exceptionally purposeful.

_That was never a good omen…_

(…)

There was a gust of air as if of a sudden, torrential breeze, and all six Stormtroopers filing in behind her were flung backwards with a strange grace. They slumped almost gently and lazily against the crystals that hadn’t even cracked or been chipped as their armor collided with them with soft _chunks_. She hadn’t felt pain going through their bodies, but instead a weightless torpor that had stolen their consciousness as effectively as knocking them out with greater and blunter force would have done. To her, though, Master Skywalker’s Force push had been nothing more than a graze tickling her skin. It couldn’t have been her doing. She had hardly had the time to brace herself. No. He must have somehow been able to shelter her from most of it.

“Rey..”

Gaze ripped away from the motionless Stormtroopers, she rushed forwards as her name passed his lips, “Master Skywalker..”

He arched an amused brow at her formality.

“Luke.” she instantly amended, a small smile flashing across his face in response to hers.

She cast a nervous look over her shoulder to make sure they were alone, then leaned in closer, “Where are the others? Have they left?”   

“Not yet. But they will. Any moment now.” he told her, voice tired and gravelly.

She slowly nodded, eager for all of them to leave already and finally escape. _She didn’t dare give in to the exuberant hope that they would manage it_.. The realization what this meant caused her tentative elation to shrink, sorrow instantly mingling with it.

“You won’t go with them.”

She looked back at Luke, the suspecting glimmer in his eyes still that watery blue prompting her to drop her gaze though that didn’t make it any easier to confess he was right. “No. I can’t.”

The image of the beach flashed through her mind. She increased her hold on it; calling it back and allowing herself to feel all she felt at the sight of what could one day be her - _their_ \- child. Scared but determined she opened up, sending an impression of it to Luke so he caught a glimpse of her vision. Both their visions. When she reconnected their gazes his eyes had widened in understanding, they shimmered with tears that he fought hard to blink back.

“No.” he agreed, sounding hoarse but convinced, “No, you can’t. And something tells me neither can I.”

He looked sad but resigned, diverted almost at the wry truth.

“I’m.. I’m sorry.” she said, feeling incredibly defeated, “I gave you my word that I wouldn’t fail you.. And now I have.”

He shook his head, all of a sudden vigorously, “No, Rey. You didn’t fail me.”

 “I did. I _am_ failing you. But I won’t do it again. I _will_ protect you. I didn’t mean for this to happen, but I won’t let them hurt you. Or them. This is the only way they will let them go.”

“As long as the First Order has me..”

Rey couldn’t trace the emotion flowing from her former Master. It wasn’t bitterness. _Acceptance? Relief?_

A deep rumbling traveled through the mines, she could feel a tremor traveling through the ground. Nothing more than streaks of oddly colored light, three ships visible through the great fissures in the ceiling shot free of the base and pelted upwards through the clear, cloudless sky.

She lowered her gaze and watched Luke as he stared after all that was left of the Resistance in solemn farewell. She thought she could detect Leia’s energy reaching out to him, connecting, then reluctantly let go again with a finality that made her gasp. Only now could she see him waver. Feel him tremble. Not just his body was growing weaker. His presence in the Force too. Like life was seeping away and he wasn’t doing anything to stop it.

“Luke?” she probed, desperate to have him deny it. But the way his eyes lingered aimed at the sky then turned to her full with exhaustion but peace provided the answer she dreaded.

“No. You can’t be. We need you. _I_ need you. I’m going to release you the moment the tide turns and we have changed the First Order. You’re a  part of that future too-”

The sounds of marching footsteps coming in their direction made her stiffen and trail off. General Hux must have gone down her path now his had inevitably yielded nothing but the dead end she had foreseen. She didn’t need to turn around and check to know they were dangerously close already. Her heart ached at the thought of what would happened when they got here.

_This wasn’t right.._

“Quick. You have to go.”

“No. No more running away.” Luke protested, shoulders squared despite his energy draining away rapidly.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to.” Rey pressed him stubbornly, unwilling to debate the issue, “Capturing a dying man wasn’t part of the plan. I _won’t_ do it. Ben will understand.”

She hurriedly fumbled for the lightsaber at her belt, then held it out to Master Skywalker once again, “Take this with you. It belongs to you. You should have it when…” she hesitated, voice breaking a little then added with more certainty, “To defend yourself in case you run into trouble. I’ll hold them up. As long as I can. Now take it. And go-”

Loud echoing footsteps disrupted her last words just before they came to an abrupt standstill, the ones belonging to the Stormtroopers following General Hux ceased a fraction of a second later than his, all of their weapons energizing to max settings with a greedy and surging buzz.

“Your work I take it?” General Hux inquired with lofty interest, turning one of the unconscious Stormtroopers’ helmets up with the tip of his boot and looking down at it in disgust before letting it fall back to the ground with a dull _thud_.

“Can’t blame a legend for trying..” Luke replied jauntily, the effort to speak costing him tremendous effort now.

“Naturally,” Hux conceded with the air of congenial generosity as he strutted towards them, “which is why, I am sure, you will not blame us for not merely trying but actually succeeding in squashing that legend of yours. It has plagued the galaxy long enough.”

“Understandable.” Luke, in his turn, granted the General, his characteristic and biting sarcasm reflected in his eyes to which all of his remaining energy seemed to have withdrawn; it burned there like glowing embers.

He stopped only a few paces from them, his great coat ruffling ever so slightly and Rey knew he had bend his arms around his back and directed his piercing eyes at her.

“I believe the honor is yours.”

It sounded like every bit the command he undoubtedly meant it to be. A test. Proof of where her allegiance truly lay.  

Rey clasped the weapon in her hand even tighter, knowing the gesture had no real purpose nor that it held a solution. She was out of options. And Luke knew it too. She couldn’t fight him. Couldn’t let him go. Refused to take him prisoner.

_Not now he was growing weaker every second.._  

“Empress..?” Hux pressed her, his civil tone not masking the condescending skepticism underlying it.

Rey gritted her teeth, every intent to strike the General down and deal with the consequences later, but Luke shook his head at her, an almost imperceptible plea for her to do nothing. Then his cybernetic hand reached for the saber, the sleeve of his discolored Jedi robes rippling back to reveal fleshless fingers with metal for skin and joints. She held her breath as it got closer, more steadfast than its organic counterpart, not daring to hope he would accept it this time. She wouldn’t be able to take it if he refused it again. He couldn’t do that to her. Not now-

Luke’s hand grasped the top of the hilt, for one bizarre moment Rey though he might push it back at her in rejection, then she felt the pull he exerted to lower it instead. She caught on, but much too late. Calling on the Force to lend her strength she tried to stop the saber, freeze it in its position between them now it couldn’t do harm yet. It was of no use. She grabbed it with her other hand too, fighting the path the saber was taking with all of her might. She was no match for him. Even now, with his life energy fading, he exuded such control over the Force, generating an overwhelming power she couldn’t possibly withstand.

Inch by inch the saber lowered further, trembling and shaking violently. General Hux took a cautious step backwards, realizing blaster pistols were of no use but with one hand reaching for it in the folds of his great coat nonetheless. In his eyes it was her doing, _her_ will overpowering that of Master Skywalker.

“ _Don’t.. Don’t do this..! Please.._ ” Rey muttered under her breath, making use of the increase in distance and begging him to stop.

Luke huffed out a defiant, hearty laugh, saying in a low tone only she could hear, “Rey.. You’re each other’s hope. Live. Both of you. _Live_..”

The lightsaber burst out, a beam of pale, hot energy. Luke’s breath hitched, his metal fingers dug into the hilt which shattered with rueful sparks as he faded; his craggy face becoming translucent until it was just his robes that fluttered to the ground with a releasing sigh.


	18. Chapter 18

**Sorry for the long wait and digital hugs for everyone who hit that kudo button! :D**

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Chapter 18

She stared in utter horror at the crumpled heap of robes at her feet. Master Skywalker’s energy had swelled into a warm, all-enveloping, unwavering concentration of the Force, and then… _Nothing_. It had dissipated. Dissolved. _Like he had_..

Both her hands still held onto the lightsaber. _His_ lightsaber. What was left of it. The hilt was cracked and dented, intricate circuitry exposed like veins where the mechanical joints of its former owner had skewered the weapon. And at the heart of it, glittering in all its fractured misery, a blue crystal bled to the ground in a rain of glistening powder.     

Rey let the shattered saber fall from her grasp, frantically rubbing her hands clean on her tunic even though there was not a trace left on them. The repetitive, desperate motion could not dispel the crippling disbelief that left her shaky and hollow. Her body ached and felt so incredibly heavy, and yet it also felt like something had just scraped her empty from the inside out, right up to the very marrow in her bones.  

“I must congratulate you, Empress. That was impressive...despite the Jedi’s hereditary cowardice.” Hux remarked slyly, strutting over to her side.

“But our victory will not be gainsaid by a coward’s trickery. A coward’s _final_ trickery.” there was a note of savage delight in his aloof voice now, “The galaxy will thank us for ridding it of the parasitic cult that has plagued it for far too long.”

Rey felt her skin prickle in pure disgust now Hux halted close next to her, anger rushing through her previously stilled bloodstream as his boot started to cruelly ground Luke’s robes under it.

“Pity his Jedi sorcery didn’t leave more behind than dirty old rags-”

It happened instantly. She couldn’t stop herself. Not this time. She had lashed out to the man at her side, hit him hard with the back of her hand. Hux gasped, gloved hand gingerly reaching for his burning cheek. He had been lucky she didn’t have any control over her powers right now. She hadn’t even tapped into the Force. Not that she didn’t want to. Hate was still bubbling up to her surface, promising to hurt and punish the General for his remark. But then her glare strayed from his icy-blue eyes to his ear.

_To what had been an ear_..

The helix was nothing more than shredded flesh. The serrated edge still looked crimson and raw. Rey thought she could hear the faint, greedily snarling echo of the saber that had done it-

A tinkling as of glass shards made both her and the General whip their gazes to the side. From the depths of the maze of red crystal pillars a slender, glittering shape weaved around its environment, driven on by some instinctive urge that evidently guided the creature where to go. It started at their presence, hackles rising in fright and the chime-like sound of its transparent, crystallite fir instantly faded away.

From the corner of her eye Rey saw Hux retrieve a blaster pistol from the inside of his coat a split second before he aimed it at the animal, a vengeful but cold, infuriated light gathering in his eyes. In a reflex she arrested the movement by calling upon the Force. It collapsed inwardly with the pressure, then was wrenched out of Hux’s hold and smashed hard against the cavernous wall. The impact created an instant web of sparkling fissures in the blood-red crystal surface. The creature let out a yelp and, its ears pressed flat against its neck, turned to flee, nimbly disappearing between an opening no human could hope to fit through.

Even though the physical exertion had been negligible, Rey felt out of breath. A haze seemed to still have settled around her senses. A dull pressing on her sight and hearing. On her very thoughts. Only her desire to hurt every inch of the General was utterly clear among the disorienting mist pressing in all around unseen but all the more deeply felt ever second that passed. She couldn’t move. And she was scared of what she would do if she could..

Footsteps Rey hadn’t registered were closely followed by the convoluted Force that surrounded Ben. He burst inside like a storm controlled but not less dangerous because of it. She recoiled from his anxious probe in her direction. Felt tainted by the anger that had hooked into her like claws. Was ashamed of her obvious inability to break through their hold. Then the surety of his presence nudged her out of her paralysis; the haze wavered, started to show cracks here and there, finally shattered until nothing was left but the numbing grief that returned completely and inescapably.  

She hadn’t realized she had sunk to her knees, hands slamming hard against the ground now to keep her balance. Still a little dazed, as if she had woken up from one nightmare only to be aware again of the other, her fingers grasped the robes pooling underneath them. She latched onto the tangibility of the rough wool with a building despair to deny what had happened to the Jedi they had belonged to. The _last_ of his kind.. _Their_ kind?

“Rey? You’ve got to let go.” A voice close to her ear instructed her, making her aware of strong hands on top of hers. “We need to leave. Let go, Rey.” Ben repeated, and slowly but surely his fingers pried hers loose, their reluctance crumbling but the sudden loss like a freefall, the world threatening to spin, and then his proximity anchored her body again, mind following a sluggish moment later.

Drops of a thick, dark liquid splattered on both their hands, clinging to the leather of his gloves and shimmering an eerie red on her skin. It was warm to the touch. Had an itchy stickiness to it as it crawled in rivulets between her knuckles and out of sight.

_Blood_..

The implication pierced her heart, prompting her to overcome at least momentarily her uncooperative body. Rey leaned back to sit on her heels, knees digging into the ground as she wrung her body to look at Ben still sheltering her form. Congealed and darkened blood caked his temple and hair, his wound languidly dripping with it.

There was no one else. Ben must have dismissed the General and the stormtroopers. It was just the two of them. The two of them and the pitiful remnants of Luke Skywalker. Of who had been and could still have been their respective Master. But it was not grief or guilt that spilled over their bond towards them. It was an intense concern and a confused but deep felt rage, two crashing currents he could only just keep from ramming into her as well.

“Ben..” She reached up to carefully inspect the gash along his temple, fingers hovering tentatively near it, uncertain to touch and cause pain.

“What happened?”

The question was an echo of her own wish to know. To understand. Or maybe it was a last, doomed attempt to deny the truth of what she already knew had happened. An attempt to hide herself from that truth a little longer in looking for another. Any other. An attempt born from years of repressing the reality of her abandonment. Rey was sure it wouldn’t work anymore. That the grief pressing in again would not be kept at bay because of her childish strategy to bury her head in the sand. To not _want_ to know. To ignore the painful awareness that she was blinding herself which had slipped through her stubborn and zealous waiting on that desert planet, just like it was already burning at the edges of her consciousness now.

_Luke.._

_He was gone.._

Ben’s strained hiss violently dragged her back to the present. There was blood on her fingertips. She must have brushed his wound with them despite her urge not to. Jolted by the sight of it she set to work wordlessly, Ben not stopping her as she healed his ruptured skin. Their eyes didn’t meet. Both of them set on avoiding it. For now. But no matter how much she tried she didn’t manage to do much more than superficially close the wound and stop most of the bleeding. She simply felt too drained and dazed to exert the required control over the Force swathing around them like a stifling fabric which yet didn’t carry any weight but instead possessed a strange lack of solidity; of being linked to any particular point in time.

She tore off a part of the wrappings around her arm, hesitated for a split second then dabbed it cautiously against his temple to get rid off the blood that coated it. “What happened?” she asked again before the repetitiveness of the movement would lull her into a tempting passiveness.

This time the question truly was directed at him. The halfway arrested spike in his Force signature told her he knew that she suspected there was more to the crash than he had told her. That he had sustained another, different wound.

His walls immediately rose into place. Immovable and stubborn. Rey didn’t have the strength to even approach them, let alone break through. Her concern and frustration at that was short-lived -if they materialized at all- when that pushed-away grief began pounding more persistently against her own defenses until it invaded her mind and heart again and swept her away in its all-consuming current.

Ben must have sensed her relapse into the state of numbness he had found her in because, by contrast, it jarred him into motion. She could do little else but surrender to both his assistance to stand up and walk and the overpowering sadness that wanted to drag her down again; it grated against her insides as if she had swallowed a spiky sand-hedgehog which burrowed through the ghostly wreckages of Stardestroyers back on Jakku, gnawing and nibbling on the parts she had a desperate need to salvage.

Retracing her steps without the lightsaber hooked onto her belt increased a sense of vulnerability just as much as it felt liberating. Rey tried hard to embrace the latter emotion, ignoring Ben’s obvious and brooding fear. That legacy had been shattered. Sifted through her fingers in fine grains until nothing of it was left to hold onto. _Perhaps it had never been truly hers_..

They made it out of the maze of tunnels, passed the hangar and control room, both of which were swarming with activity. Stormtroopers were busy making inventories of whatever material had been left behind during the Resistance’s flight and hacking into the old and dusty consoles. No one dared stop them. Some startled into attention and saluted hastily, others froze or scurried away with the same instinctive desire to remain unnoticed.

General Hux acknowledged their entry into the awaiting shuttle with a stiff, barely perceptible nod that made his jaw flex in restrained fury, then slunk away. It was the same on board the Titan. Captain Vaughn, though visibly relieved to leave the dratted system that had caused this much damage to both her ship and potentially her career, kept her distance more out of dread and loathing than respect while she gave the order to depart for Chandrila.

When they made planetfall hours later the scene bursting into life as Rey disembarked was surreal and sickening. Banners a deep crimson and carrying the symbol of the First Order were everywhere. The black, many-rayed sun threatening to skewer the universe-containing hexagon in its greediness to expand rippled and swayed in a deceptively serene, even seducing breeze. The square was filled with military personnel of all ranks mingling with pompous industrialists and gluttonous traders. A triumphant fanfare echoed all around and the sheer festivity made Rey even more unsteady on her feet. She almost retched when the crowd applauded their victory, punctuating it with boisterous felicitations on removing Luke Skywalker; removing the one man in the galaxy that could have been their enemy’s hero. The seclusion the palace offered was welcome for the first time since they had relocated to it and it swallowed them up impassively, the celebrating mass left to lap against its outer walls, their nauseating ecstasy seeping through them. 

It was hours later still when Rey latched onto the one chance she got to escape Ben’s vigilant watch over her. She snuck out of their wing, avoiding detection by the dozen or so guards she passed afterwards on the way out, feeling protected more, somehow, not by the dark cloak but the fact that she was feeling so empty she half expected herself to appear transparent or immaterial; not really there.

The sea took no notice of her when she rushed to meet it, the sand underfoot giving her that familiar sink and then release sensation. Even after a lifetime it had never ceased to be equal parts laborious and mundane. In a way it bore a striking resemblance to the core of her existence there too; moving without ever really letting go of the planet’s unvarying surface.    

The first spray of salty water tingled her face and exposed skin, promising a forgetful coldness she longed for now. Soon the fringes of the waves spilled over her boots; her ankles disappeared into the water; it reached her knees; came up to her hipbones. Rey halted only when she was submerged to her midriff and the sea started to pull her further into its swirling depths just as much as it was pushing her back to the shore. Shivering uncontrollably she reveled in the immense, muscle-biting cold that enveloped her. It was soothing somehow to have the aching coldness of her body match the raw numbness originating deeper within.

It was what she needed to unlock her sorrow. To not hold back the tears. To taste the same saltiness as that of the night air in those that hung to her lips. She didn’t sense regret. Not now behind her was the very beach of their vision; now the very sea that embraced her would carry those same shells to the shore for their daughter. One day. She had done it for the sake of a future that was already too much a part of her to dismiss. It was a bizarre relief to grieve without the regret she had expected to accompany it. There _was_ guilt. There would always be guilt. For her part in bringing about Luke’s downfall. But there also now grew the realization that this had been his choice. His decision. A decision to end his exile and face the mistake that had caused him to retreat to Ahch-To in the first place. To confront his flaws and overcome them even if it meant giving up his life. Maybe he hadn’t surrendered to death but instead willingly fulfilled and completed his life.

Rey’s lungs were straining to take in air, their swelling made increasingly harder by the stabs of cold water piercing right through them. Her breaths grew shallow and her body was at once on fire and made of ice. Her hands hovered above the surface with sprawled fingers slowly started to sink through it.

A splash. More than one. Growing louder. A steady, determined, comforting rhythm of splashes. Someone cleaving the waves to get to her. Strong arms scooping her up with an almost misplaced ease and grace like they had done on Takadona. A lifetime away. Carrying a different Rey. Another version of herself. Hot air on her face as he clutched her to his chest. And then the blurry stars dazzling her vision blinked out.  

(…)

Ben cradled her limp form in his arms, fingers digging slightly in her shoulders. He was terrified that she would fall. That the sea would claim her as it had come so close to. He should have warned her it could be as treacherous as the sinking fields on her home planet. _Home_.. As inopportune as it was he couldn’t hold back a flicker of a grin. He doubted she would ever call it that. Still. She had told him of it regardless, her small world for decades. Told him about the sand mostly. Her constant companion. Sometimes he suspected she even missed it, such integral a part, no matter how much hated, to her life. And he had seen enough of it too in those memories she hadn’t shared in their whispered conversations before they once again fell asleep on the sofa. The ones he had glimpsed on Starkiller Base and later when they had sought each other’s memories in their minds.

He hadn’t told her nearly as much about Chandrila. But she had seen most of it. Probably surmised the rest by now. They were literally walking over the graves of his memories here. And it had almost cost him everything he cared for. The specter-presence of his younger self had momentarily mesmerized him before he had turned his back resolutely to him, as his usually did in the futile hope he would dissolve and leave him alone. His distraction had been long enough for Rey to disappear. For her to answer the call of the tumultuous mass of water. To her it was still a miracle. The excess of that which had been sparsest on Jakku. A suitable balm for the pain he knew grief was causing her. That naivety had been close to taking her life too.

A powerful tremor shooting down his spine at the thought Ben increased his hold on her, pressing her closer to his own body and wishing it could be even closer. His boots made soggy, squelching sounds as he hastened through the palace, her soaked clothes adding a steady _drip_ - _drip_ - _drip_ as drops stained the marble floor. He met no one. The guards were smart enough to stay out of his way and sight. They were also forbidden to be in the royal wing without orders so it was the usual realm of silence and empty rooms as he entered it.      

He went straight for his room, made the door slid open with an impatient bumping of his elbow against the sensor then laid her down on his bed as gingerly as he could so she wouldn’t wake. It proved a more difficult challenge to disentangle her from the now heavy cloak. Once he had thrown it carelessly aside, releasing a grateful sigh when her eyes remained closed, he hesitated, hands reaching for then drawing back from her drenched clothes clinging to her body. Her normally tanned skin shone pale in the darkened room, most of her hair clustered in thick, wet bundles except for some loose strands that stuck to her face, shimmering trails of water running down from their ends. Fast asleep, or rather succumbed to her exhaustion as she had, it didn’t mean she had stopped trembling. All of her quivered, her energy in the Force fluctuating along with the fever that would get worse before it got better.

Abandoning the idea to call for a med droid, or Azi even, Ben instead rolled her on her side, covered her with the sheets, pulled off his tunic, kicked off his boots and crawled under them next to her. He enveloped her body with his own, her clammy clothes cool against his warm skin, one arm snaked under her to encircle her, his hand rubbing her shoulders in circular motions. Eventually the shivering got less. Her breathing became slower and steadier. Her fervent but unintelligible mutters growing fainter and fainter then stopped. A contagious peacefulness replaced all of it. He instinctively probed it with a mistrust mingling with curiosity because it came with the preceding shadow of purpose. A purpose he couldn’t fully make out, nor did he think Rey understood it herself yet. But a sense of purpose. Unmistakably there.           

It was beyond tempting to close his own eyes too. To ignore the throbbing of a head wound no longer traceable but for the crusts of dried up blood clotting his hair and temple. To escape from the thoughts prowling the periphery of his mind. Thoughts he feared would find a way into his sleep if he did give in to it.

Rey let out a soft moan of contentment, shifting a little closer in his embrace. He dug his face in the side of her neck in response, seeking shelter in the proximity. To not walk again through those winding corridors of a freighter he had destroyed but remain still next to her. To take in the scent of her, not that musty smell that invaded the entire vessel. To feel how her body heat no longer leeched from his but mingled with it instead of remembering the cold of space encapsulating that accursed ship. To hold on to the Force spun around them like a cocoon. To be safe in it.

But it did not protect him. He did walk those corridors. His nose did fill with that musty smell. He did remember the coldness of space pressing against every viewport. And the Force trapped him in it like a cage.

At first he didn’t move. Denied the freighter taking shape around him. Ignored the corridor spiraling away from either side of him; its walls stained and the floor dull and tarnished. A sound prickled his ears. Ben tried to shut this out too. But it was there again. Pervasive and indistinct at the same time. A voice…

_Han Solo_?

His heart clenched at the suspicion, he tried to hide its betrayal by stalking after the voice still drifting towards him, his boots colliding hard with the floor but the dull, reverberating sound of it did not drown whatever that bodiless person was saying. It became clearer with every step.  

_I can’t do it.. I can’t.. I…can’t.._

The words repeated itself in echoes that seemed to come from far away. The pleading tone of a young boy. _Not_ his father.

“Who are you?” he asked commandingly, hating the split second of panic shooting through him.

_I can’t do it, mom.. mom.. I just can’t do it.._  

It sounded closer now, some of the words magnified, bouncing off the inside of his skull.

_will I ever see you again? again..? again..?_

Ben slowed his pace, straining to pinpoint the origins of the voice.

_will I..? see you..?_

Maybe he would see the boy around the next corner. But there was no one. Nothing. Just the corridor twisting along seemingly endlessly.

_ever see you again..? again..?_

He stopped. Something was wrong. Different. The Millennium Falcon didn’t run on forever. Not like this.

“Who are you?” The lack of response was even more riling than the unknown voice. “Who are you?!” Ben burst out, anger at being fooled flooding over him.

_what does you heart tell you? you.. you.._

Ben swiveled around at hearing the woman’s voice. He could’ve sworn she was behind him. But there was nothing to see.

_your heart.. what does your heart.. what does your heart tell you?_

Sand trickled across the smudgy floor, apparently coming from nowhere at all. It gathered around his feet in an unseen, unfelt gust of wind.

_I hope so.. hope.. yes.. yes.. I guess.._

The boy’s voice again. Coming from behind him. The two revolving around him. Like he was caught between them.

_then we will.. we will see each other.. see each other again.._

The woman replied, a soft warmth in her tone.

_I will come back and free you, mom. come back… I will.. I will come back and free you, mom.. mom.._

The intensity of the boy’s determination was as blinding as the sunrays suddenly stabbing his eyes.

_I promise. promise.. promise.._

Ben raised a hand protectively in front of his face to block out the glaring brightness.

_be brave.. brave.. be brave.._

The woman encouraged, a coaxing mingled with hurt.

_don’t look back.. don’t look back._

She sounded stern now, not convincing enough to filter out the pain; her sadness. _Their_ sadness..

_don’t look back_. _. look back.. back.._

The corridor spun around, a vortex that made him lose his balance then attempted to suck him into its swirling, gaping hole.  

_Ben…?_

A voice he knew.. A voice that sparked his defiance and strength. That just by calling out to him spurred him on to not give up.

“Rey?” he cried out, his body slipping, sliding across the Falcon’s grimy floor, the walls a whirl of dirty brown, “Rey!”

_Where was she?!_

His hands flailed around, desperate to hold on to something.

_Ben..?_

He found the string between them, fragile but there. Ben grasped it. It tautened. Pulled him closer.

_Ben?_

Following it, following _her_ voice, was like dragging himself to the surface. He felt dangerously close to passing out before he would break through it. Everything around him grew darker. Then he woke with a desperate plunge for air and she was there.


	19. Chapter 19

**A/N: Thanks for the kudos!!~ 333**

* * *

 

Chapter 19

He blinked against the sun that flooded in through the window, the brightness of it making it appear ablaze. Rey kneeled next to him on the bed, her hands on his bare shoulders. Framed by the light as she was it ironically cast all but her edges in half-shadow.

Ben blinked again. Willing his eyes to adjust. To believe that what he saw was real. Not a dream. Not a nightmare. _Real_. He rubbed the bridge of his nose then looked up into her eyes now the color of molten copper. Brows furrowed in concern she opened her mouth to speak but he instantly muted the unformed words with his own. Sensing his desperate need to fill himself with the tangibility of her presence Rey’s initially tensing body relaxed and fell more into his as she responded to his kiss. Her equally gentle tugging and clashing bruised his lips, eventually eliciting a groan of pleasure to spill over hers.

The sound made him pull back instantly. He buried his face in her neck instead and held her close. He anchored himself over her form, waiting for the ecstasy to slowly ebb away. It would’ve been easier to wrestle a gundark into submission. Every fiber of his being goading him on to maintain that blissful rhythm. He swore it got more difficult every time to cut that swelling current short. To not allow himself to be swept up in it and take her with him until the apex it suggested would lift them into even greater delirium. A promise too precious to devour because of his blinding need. A longing best left to linger. Cherish.         

“Bad dream?” she asked in a muffled voice. He could feel her lips move against his ear. “Because of the crash?”

He wrapped his arms even tighter around her, unwilling to talk about it, irrationally hoping he didn’t have to if he just held onto her. That in their embrace the nightmare and what he had done would disappear.

“Ben?”

She stirred, trying to maneuver a little more free so she could unearth his face from her tangled, salt-scented hair. He wouldn’t let her. He couldn’t. If her eyes found his he would succumb.

“You can’t swim.” he stated as if he simply wished to discuss a passing observation. It was easier to talk about her instead. For a moment Rey remained still. Breath contained in her stiffened posture. Then it came out in a light, amused huff. The sound tickled his ear.

“Not something you learn on a desert planet.”

He shifted uncomfortably, cowering his shoulders in self-reproach so they curved perfectly around hers, “Something I should’ve taught you by now. So you wouldn’t..” His voice wavered, sunk back down his throat and into nothingness.

The assuring pressure of one of her hands lifted, the warmth it left on his back evaporating and making him involuntarily tremble. Then her fingers raked upwards through his hair and she started to softly scrape the back of his head in a placating rhythm. Ben released a shuddering breath as the fear of losing her retreated again.

“I needed to think. To relive it. Find the answer I missed. The water seemed to offer it somehow. If anything it was as cold as I felt.” she told him honestly, almost demurely, and yet utterly calm with that nascent purpose hovering somewhere close to her surface.  

“Waves don’t talk.” he retorted, concern seamlessly bleeding through the feigned sternness. Another small huff that ghosted his ear. A pleasant warm tingling of air that caressed it.

“What?” he grumbled affectionately at her enjoyment of his reticence, pressing their bodies even closer as he reveled in their palpable proximity.

“No. They don’t. But they helped me mourn as I needed to mourn. To come out on the other end and see clearly. Well. Clearer than before. A little bit. Not until my body was already too numb to move.. Resist the pull of the water..” Rey confessed quietly.

Ben hesitated, thumb tracing the bit of her spine under it up and down until he couldn’t push the question away anymore. “What happened? With.. With Luke?”

For a moment he wasn’t sure she was going to answer, that she was capable of telling him. Her fingers ceased their massage and instead plucked gingerly at his hair, following strand after strand to its end before letting it drop then reaching for it or another again, thoughts far away from the repetition of that ritual. At last she spoke. Voice frayed a little with a rawness still fresh but also already subsiding.

“He lured me right into the mines. Me _and_ General Hux.” she gnashed her teeth, fingers unconsciously digging through his hair then completely abandoning their touch. “He must’ve planned to stall for time that way. So the others could escape. It worked. Most stormtroopers were concentrated in and near the hangar, guarding what we thought was the only way out. The few that Hux had sent with me were no match for Luke. They just… _floated_ for a moment, passed out after he relinquished his control over their minds. All of it barely touched me. Maybe he thought I hadn’t come for him. To capture him, I mean. He must’ve hoped that I’d join him. _Rejoin_ the Resistance at least. But I didn’t. I couldn’t. Not anymore..”

She fell abruptly silent as if a troubling but conquered thought exerted too much weight and she needed a moment to inwardly regain strength to have peace with it and finally push it aside. He brushed her mind supportively, that little girl on the beach instantly flowing between the both of them as if she danced light-footed across the gossamer string leading from one to the other. Then Rey’s fingers were suddenly in the nape of his neck again, resuming their half-massage that Ben suspected not only soothed him. If anything it gave her something to focus on other than the emotions chasing each other through her.

“I showed him. I showed _her_ to Luke. It was the only way I could think of to…to _explain_. He understood. He didn’t even blame me. Then Hux was there and…and it all went wrong. His energy was weakening. It had been. I’d felt it. But he didn’t leave. Wouldn’t listen to me. I tried to stop him but he was too strong. Even though he was dying.. I couldn’t regain control of the lightsaber. He turned it. Ignited it..”     

At the tremor that ran through her Ben quickly lifted his head, retreating it from the nook of her neck in which it had been nestled to find her eyes, lock onto them and cup her face with his hands. “It’s not your fault.”

Her eyelashes fluttered but not against tears. A short-lived relapse of doubt blinked away with the movement. “I know.”

She meant it. _Felt_ it. The Force around her attuned to the conviction her tone held.

“Nor is it yours. It was Luke’s choice to leave the island and answer his sister’s call for help.”

Ben involuntarily flinched at the reference. A reference to someone he had thought dead not too long ago. It also triggered the uncalled for and confusing relief he had experienced at that revelation. His reaction didn’t stop Rey from going on. “It was also his choice to return to it the way he did. You probably don’t agree but I believe his regret was sincere. He risked everything showing himself to you-”

“It was foolish to Force project himself across the galaxy.” Ben amended, anger briefly flaring up before he could stop it, “He overestimated his powers.”     

“I don’t think he did.” Rey countered, equally convinced. Her meaningful look didn’t escape him. Half of him, or maybe more than that, agreed with her, in fact. Luke had known what a feat like that would mean. And yet.. He had still done it. To right his wrong? Apologize for something he couldn’t ever undo?

Ben lowered his gaze, studying her sun-freckled nose and rubbing her cheekbones with his thumbs to give himself some time to sift any remaining anger out of his voice. “Either way. There was nothing you could’ve done to stop him from dying after that. It wasn’t your doing.”

“Not for the most part.” she replied with a hint of self-reproach but also that glimmer of purpose again. “He played his part in the end. He died so they could live another day. Because of his sacrifice Leia and the others escaped.”

He actually winced at the name this time. Rey effortlessly picked up on it. “Don’t hate the fact that you still feel… _something_. She _is_ your mother, Ben-”

“No.” he bit back, wanting to strangle the pathetic lurch his heart had made when she had said it out loud. He let his gaze shoot up to rove aimlessly over the ceiling, hands almost desperately cradling her face.

“Is it that dream?” Rey probed, unfazed by his growing restlessness, “ _Nightmare_?”

He already shook his head when he abandoned the movement and contradicted it by saying, “No. I.. I don’t know. Maybe..”

“Crait? Does it have something to do with what happened on Crait? The crash?” she persisted.

When he showed all the signs of reverting to the reluctant silence that had met her initial foray into the same terrain as he had woken up, she took his wrists in her hand and pulled them away from her face. Before he could react she shifted her weight onto him and pushed him on his back. She planted her hands palm down in the crooks of his shoulders and neck, her hair swaying around her face to tantalizingly graze his nose.   

“Your turn.” she simply said, the threat her demand held making him wish he was less aware of the way she straddled him, a tense warmth pressing on his hipbones that was growing like a wildfire through the rest of his body. _Their_ bodies. He could feel the Force around them respond in equal measure. He was inadvertently awed by her unwavering determination to get the answer she sought.

“Ben.”

The stern reminder soon pulled him back from thoughts that were following increasingly dangerous paths. He swallowed hard. Willing himself to not drown, to not _want_ to be drowned, in those hazel brown eyes alight and containing a fierceness he found near impossible to resist. But she would not be denied the answer she deserved.

“Yes. Somehow.” he shrugged, an almost petulant gesture at the confession.

“Why did you crash?” she asked but already knew it wasn’t the right question, “It’s not that. Something else.. Something that happened after it.”

He nodded, looking straight back into her searching gaze and finding enough shelter in it to recount most of it.

“When I got out I saw it. It was right there. The..” Ben clenched his jaw, hating himself for the difficulty he was having in even saying the name, “The Millennium Falcon. Crashed too by the looks of it. Even before we got to the surface.”

“What did you do?”

There was no rebuke embedded in her words. Only the need to have her suspicions confirmed. Maybe even to understand.

“I destroyed it, Rey. I had to. I knew that was what I would do if I ever saw it again. And so I did. It’s gone now. Every rusty bolt that still held its pathetic shell together is gone. There’s nothing left of it now.”

The finality of it made her bite her lip in an attempt to contain the blow this caused her. Then she steadied herself, swallowed and raised one hand to brush his hair out of his face, fingertips lingering above his forehead as if she wished for nothing more but to reach directly into it. “And your nightmare?”

The spike of worry echoing her question in the Force more than anything else made him tell her. All of it this time. “I was in it again. Inside the Falcon. At first I thought I could hear.. That I could hear Han Solo.” he couldn’t make himself say ‘father’ but there was nothing accusatory about the way Rey narrowed her eyes, it was that same worry mingling with curiosity. “There were voices. Voices that shouldn’t have been there. It sounded like a boy.. A boy and a woman. His mother.”   

“A vision?” she guessed cautiously, posing it like a theory for him to consider instead of explicitly voicing the thought he knew must have crossed her mind too.

“Not sure.” he admitted, tensing up at the possibility.

“I saw the island in my dreams for years before I set foot on it. I couldn’t have known about it unless the Force somehow manifested in my dreams. Revealing intent.” she paused before tentatively adding, “Or purpose.”

Ben searched her eyes at this, at that one word that instantly gave away how he had been right in sensing its budding presence in her, but she blinked self-consciously at the scrutiny and tilted her head with an almost deprecating, fleeting grin flashing apologetically across her face, unconvincingly waving away the suggestion.

“Rey-”

“Do you have any idea what it means?” she interrupted, not yet looking back into his eyes as she asked it.

“No.”

“Well..” she stirred, still avoiding to answer his gaze, “Maybe next time-”

She cut herself off this time at sensing his indignant amusement at that particularly objectionable prospect.

Ben half raised himself so she was almost sitting in his lap, her knees alongside his lower chest now and their faces inches apart while his fingers remained entangled with hers on his pillow so she couldn’t move away even if she wanted to.

“You really want me to lose sleep over bodiless voices and a destroyed freighter?”

Her mouth quirked before she could repress the impulse. She waited with an agonizing patience as he angled his head to close the last remaining distance, his mouth hovering near hers so he could feel her lips leave faint, lingering traces whenever they strayed to his.

“No.. I’d rather you lose sleep b-because..” her cheeks flushed with her own bashful stutter, breath hitching in response before she finished all embarrassment gone now, “Because of m-”

The end of her sentence got half-swallowed as his lips, having teasingly interrupted the movement of hers, morphed it greedily into a kiss that had barely started when somewhere far too close by a comm panel intrusively chimed.       

(…)

Rey closed her eyes, nose wrinkling in reluctance to have the moment evaporate. Foreheads resting against each other, she could hear Ben’s frustrated but soft sigh. Then he pulled back. She swung her legs over his and slid of the bed, feeling a little disoriented as her feet suddenly carried all of her weight again. Ben followed close behind as she stepped into the main room, the chiming repeating itself.

She had reached out with the Force for the mechanism flanking the door before she had made the conscious decision to do so. The phantom touch instantly made it slide open with its usual hiss.

When a slender, masked figure clad in dark robes bowed her way in Rey instinctively moved her hands towards the lightsaber on her belt. Only to find out it wasn’t there anymore. Didn’t mean the reflex to brush passed it to ascertain its reassuring presence was as well.

“Forgive the intrusion, Maste- _Emperor_.” Ika Ren hastily corrected herself, shoulders hunching forward for a fraction of a second as if she expected to be punished.

“What is it?” Rey asked before Ben could respond, not that he seemed of a mind to, not now he had turned away from the visitor he apparently didn’t consider a direct threat and being only half way in pulling a tunic over his torso.

“I thought you should know that we have almost completed extracting valuable information from the material the Resistance left behind on Crait.” the knight reported, black and silver mask turning towards her so that its cobweb-like design glistened wistfully.

“What have you found?” interest piqued, Ben took a few steps closer, bare feet almost soundless on the marble floor.

“Very little.” Ika admitted uncomfortably before straightening her back seemingly after an inward remonstration and quickly adding in a surer tone, “But it does look like we might be able to decrypt the coordinates a distress signal was sent to. If we do, we will have a list of planets either potentially harboring the remaining rebels or that are at the very least sympathetic to their cause-”

“No.” Rey cut her off, the hair on the back of her neck rising at the prospect of initiating a hunt of people she knew. _Had known_ in any case. People Luke had just died for. That could well be the only remaining hope for the galaxy should she and Ben fail.

“Empress?” Ika tilted her head almost imperceptibly in her direction, her distorted voice betraying a hint of fascination rather than suspicion.

_Rey?_

Ben’s voice penetrated her mind almost in unison with his knight’s surprise. Glancing over her shoulder Rey saw him throw her a questioning look.

She held his gaze, unsure whether Ika Ren would now easily guess at the silent communication between them but deciding she didn’t care much either way.

_I won’t let all of them escape only to be hunted down now. That would mean Luke’s sacrifice was for nothing._

_It might have meant that regardless._ Ben countered almost placatingly, _They might not pose much of a threat, their ideas still do. Or could. One day. If we can root out any future sympathizers now-_

_Root out?!_ Rey shot back, brows contracting in an indignant frown. _We can’t attack a planet and its people because we suspect they could be sheltering refugees._

_They’re not exactly ordinary refugees._

_They’re not exactly in a position to be anything but ordinary refugees._

They stared hard at each other, neither moving a muscle or even blinking.

_We already won, Ben. The Resistance is defeated. We don’t have a right to invade a world they asked for help when we can’t be sure they granted the request. If we go down that road there’s a bigger chance we’re actually creating the threat you expect ourselves._

He held her gaze a moment longer, the depth it held seemingly increasing with every second more. Eventually he nodded, an approving light painting his eyes a piercing ebony.

Feeling a blush creep up her cheeks at the wave of desire and affection rolling towards her through the Force, Rey stepped forward to address the knight again.  

“That won’t be necessary. You’re not to pursue it any further.”

Ika Ren accepted the change in orders without protest or any outward sign of defiance, sincerely asking instead, “How about the base itself?”

“Destroy it.” Ben commanded carelessly, retreating to his bedroom to pull on his boots judging by the deep but short thumps of heels hitting the floor. It wasn’t what Rey had had in mind. But she trusted Ben’s judgement. Besides, he had allowed her to persuade him so this was a compromise she was more than willing to accept.

The knight didn’t move even after Ben’s disappearance, the inquiring gaze of her unseen eyes lingering on her, prompting her to confirm.

“Destroy it.” Rey finally repeated with less indifference but similar conviction.

Ika Ren remained where she was a moment longer, giving Rey that same sensation again that she was appraising her somehow without a snipe at her mind or even a single fluctuation in the Force indicating animosity.  

At last, rousing herself from a seeming entrancement, she bend her back in a formal bow, saying decisively “It will be done.” before sweeping out of the Royal Wing, long cloak swishing behind her.

Rey stared after her, an inexplicable curiosity sparked again by the same knight. She had been struck by seeing her show what looked a lot like genuine sympathy towards that stormtrooper on Crait. And now.. Now she had reacted differently from Rey was sure any of the other of her fellow knights of Ren would have. Was it only the effect of a highly trained mind? Was her instinct simply guiled by it? If so, then how would placing a supporting hand on the shoulder of a stormtrooper, nothing more than a number in a vast hive of anonymous fighters, how would that be an attempt to fool her? It had been an unguarded moment. A moment not meant to be seen by her..

“Where are you going?” Ben called after her, reappearing fully clothed now and just finishing pulling on his last leather glove.

Decision made she didn’t break her stride as she replied, “There’s something I need to do. Need to know.”

“Something that involves tailing a knight?” he guessed knowingly, “She will execute our orders. I sensed no deceit in her, despite of what she is-”

“ _Exactly_.” Rey spun around, putting meaningful emphasis on the observation they had obviously shared.

Ben held her gaze, trying to gauge whether he would push for an explanation. The fervor and sincerity of her intention must’ve been palpable enough for him to divert from that course for the time being.

“Okay.” he conceded, moving over to one of the statues and reaching behind it to reveal a hidden panel built into the wall. Rey couldn’t see what he took from its recesses when he already pressed the sleek, metallic-coated blaster in her hand. “Go.”

Hand hovering in front of the sensor she refrained an instant longer from opening the door, experiencing the weight of the weapon disproportionately to what it really was. The split-second shattering of the circumference of his dark eyes told her he remembered too what had happened last time she had held a blaster.

“Yes. I felt that.” he answered her unspoken question, making her hastily close the gap between them and press a tentative hand to his chest, covering the spot where she’d shot him, whether it had left a visible mark or not.

He enveloped it with his own and brought it to his lips, the soft kiss on the back of her hand almost overwhelming.

“Go.” he repeated, letting her fingers slip from his. “Or you’ll make me miss the meeting too.” he added as a mock admonishment.     

She send him a small smile in return, walking backwards and away from him and tugging the blaster behind her belt as she went.

Soon she had put several high-ceilinged and long hallways between them. She could sense him moving farther away from her too towards the atrium. It was already thrumming with the many, unawakened but perceivable Force signatures of Captains, Admirals and Trade Barons, all sitting down once again to a lavish meal and an overabundance of Emerald wine to discuss the distribution of resources. And to make sure that both their supply lines stayed in place and their respective monopolies of them remained untouched, maybe robbing their neighbor of theirs in the process.

Rey shuddered in loathing, resolutely closing herself off from the greed and avarice coiling in big, fat swirls in the Force to renew her zeal to pick up a trace of her quarry. It felt slightly strange to carry a blaster instead of the lightsaber. She almost had a nostalgic yearning for her staff. It had kept her safe most of her life and she would gladly exchange the blaster for it now. Something else gnawed at her too as she stealthily made her way through the palace, something that gnawed at her bones precisely because something that should instead _wasn’t_.

She should be more concerned with the loss of the Jedi texts that had perished along with the Falcon. But she wasn’t. Instead she was more keen to pursue that mutual fascination she thought she’d glimpsed between her and the knight. With the ancient books gone her consequent sadness could not match that sense of liberation she’d also experienced with the destruction of the Skywalker lightsaber. Regardless of how she felt about it, of how she perhaps should feel about it, she was now free from the legacy those objects represented. At least she realized what a burden it really had been no matter how much she had wanted to make it her mission. Her role in this story. She would have to figure out what it was instead. By herself. To learn on her own what it was that she needed to do here. At the heart of the First Order. And maybe Ika Ren would lead her to an answer..

Rey skidded to a halt, cursing her racing thoughts to have almost made her fail to notice the shadowy figure she was looking for. The knight had mercifully not been alerted to her presence and continued on after having exited a room halfway down the hallway. Rey waited for her to turn the corner, listening for her footsteps to die away before easing forward. She rather crudely overrode the security lock, being a scavenger had never required subtlety or a need to be covert. Hoping that the method with which she’d gained entry would not instantly give her away, she slipped inside a non-descript, oval shaped room rimmed with consoles and view-screens.

She closed her eyes, willing her breathing to slow down and her nervous hyperawareness of everything around her to concentrate on what she was looking for. Retreating into herself as Ben had prompted her to do during the gridlock of their dual on Starkiller Base, she reached outwards with something other than her senses. The room became an isolated collection of occasional energy spikes and the slowly fading imprints the living Force still contained from those who had been here not too long ago or were a familiar, lingering presence.

_There!_

Rey moved over to one of the consoles that had nothing about it to distinguish itself from the dozen others apart from the remnant of organic energy surrounding it that did not originate from the device itself.   

It took her a while to access the files that had been activated most recently and then to rifle through their own orders relayed to the necessary officers. She couldn’t prevent a feeling of deflation at finding nothing else there.

Rey bit her lip in frustration, tapping the console with her fingers with the same sentiment. Then the screen flashed. Blurred out of focus and for a split second another file became visible and Rey was staring at a face she had never expected to find in Ika Ren’s personal files. A face familiar despite the blank, detached look in his eyes. A face attached to an evaluation report of a stormtrooper. A stormtrooper with the number FN-2187.

_Finn…_?!     

The registration of what her eyes were unmistakably seeing had barely dawned on her when she reeled from a sudden, restless swelling in the Force. It vibrated in warning.

_Ben?!_

She needed to find him. _Now_. Rey rushed out of the communications room, sprinting passed startled and nonplussed staff and rapidly closing in on the atrium even as Ben’s voice sounded in her head.

_Rey? Have you felt it?_

_Yes! Where are you?_

But he didn’t need to answer, he hurled into view at the end of the hallway she’d been running along, both jolting to a halt as they saw each other.

For a single, stretching moment there was utter and complete silence, punctuated only by their heavy breathing and panting. Then a powerful tremor unhinged the Force. The clanking sound of armor-plated soles echoed loud and lonely against the walls. A stormtrooper half tripped through an archway, coming to a stumbling standstill in the middle of the hallway. A spike of frantic fear. Of pressure building. A surge. And then Rey felt heat scorching her skin before the shockwave of the explosion knocked her back. Her head hit the floor with a crack. The wailing of an alarm pierced her ears as nothing more than half-muted and distorted screeches. Then even that faded away and her eyes fluttered shut.


	20. Chapter 20

**A/N: Thanks for hitting that kudo button!! Here's to 2019 becoming a fanfic-filled year! ;)**

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Chapter 20

The ringing in his ears seemed to split his skull in two, both halves equally sore and concussed. Blood pounded against his temples and he had to fight against a sluggish weight to stay conscious.

Ben pushed himself to his feet and staggered through the lifting smoke. He soon spotted her. Lying amid smoldering debris. Her eyes were closed and her body sprawled across the now pockmarked floor. _Alive_.. _Alive_.. She was _alive_.. It was the only thing that repeated itself over and over again in his head.

Then his boot snagged behind something and he lost his balance. In his desperate haste to reach Rey he hadn’t seen the helmet obstructing his path. He collided hard with the floor but instantly turned on his back, half raising himself on one elbow to face his attacker before freezing in his movement.

The armor of the stormtrooper dead at his feet had been ripped apart right where his heart would’ve been. A gaping, gory hole was left, seared flesh melting with the distorted but still gleaming white plastoid composite. The helmet was battered but still on, a number etched in the exposed neckline. A number he recognized instantly. _How could this be..?!_

There were voices. People approaching. Orders being shouted and the sound of numerous footsteps swelling to a grating din. Something gray and solid emerged from among the thinning smoke, now no more than vapor. Ben had already lashed out with the Force, ramming whoever it was against the wall, before he identified it as a med-droid. It wheezed out a final stuttering with its mechanical voice than collapsed in a heap of metal.

Unconcerned by the needless destruction Hux strutted passed the remnants of the droid, hands folded behind his back and a satisfied sneer plastered on his face. It wasn’t because he was glad to find his emperor alive. The cold look in his eyes hinted at something else. As if his calculations had proved correct.

_Calculations that would estimate he would unleash his violent outburst on the first thing that moved?_

“Over here.” Hux called out, voice controlled and terse, and he motioned for the other med-droid to come forward.

He dragged himself upright, wavering gaze locked onto the General’s icy stare.

_Or that he had gleaned the affirmation that he had recognized that stormtrooper…?_

Ben waved away the droid running a scanner over his torso with an impatient flick of his hand, directing it instead towards Rey, ordering it to attend to her first.        

“Emperor! It is such a relief-”

“Clean up this mess!” Ben snarled venomously at Hux’s evident lie. He quickly turned away from him, knowing he would kill him on the spot if he didn’t. Fists balled he stalked away to follow the antigrav gurney they had transferred Rey onto.

The tiny but independent medical facility located on one of the lower floors soon felt instantly crowded the moment they entered it even though it was just a med-droid, a handful of medical staff and himself that were there.

A standard dose of healing fluids had barely been administered when Rey moved. First her hands clenched and unclenched. Then she opened her eyes , languidly took in her surroundings and started to hoist herself up. Ben immediately stepped forward, helping her sit up.

“Leave.” he barked at the droids and staff who had come rushing forward. Everyone obeyed at once, some even scrambling to get outside first.

“How are you feeling?” he asked when they were alone, tone earnest.

“F-fine..” she mumbled dazedly, shaking her head to clear it then wincing and pressing her palms against her ridges of her brows. “A bit of headache.”

He watched her closely for a moment longer, then checked the data streaming across the viewscreen above the repulsor bed to assure himself it really was nothing more than that.

“You?” she inquired in her turn, sounding a little less groggy this time.

“Same.” he said, still feeling that worrying emptiness even though she was save. Rey nodded relieved in response, emitting a stifled _hmpf_ as she shifted her sore body so her legs dangled over the edge of the bed, her toes barely brushing the immaculate floor.

“How about-” she began but he didn’t need to let her finish to know what she was going to ask.

“Dead.”

There was a heavy silence, then her soft and confused, “Why?”

She rubbed her forehead, kneading it to get rid off the ache trapped inside. “An accident?”

It didn’t sound remotely convinced, more like a reluctance to face the gruesome reality of that stormtrooper’s guilt. _Or was that guilt really his instead?_

Ben shook his head, trying hard to ban that though for fear she picked up on it. “I think we can rule out accident. But I’m not sure that he knew this was going to happen.”

A puzzled frown creased her brows, hand freezing midair in its massage, “What do you mean?”

He slid a hand into his pocket, retrieving a data cube which he slid into the square slot of the holotank at the center of the small room.

At once an image appeared, shimmering and casting its fluorescent and pale blue light all around. Ben brusquely swiped the activation panel so the image unfroze. “This is the security footage of the hallway. And here..we..are..” he muttered as if counting down until both of them entered appeared in view and halted abruptly in response. “And here comes the..” he paused, repressing a stronger term that came to mind when the white-armored soldier entered the scene, “The stormtrooper.”

Rey squeezed her eyes tight shut, face averted and nose all scrunched up protectively as if she hoped to shield herself from the holographic repetition of the explosion that followed, filling the entire screen momentarily with a blinding flash and dark smoke. Ben paused the recording, typing in an earlier timeframe then replaying it.

“What is it?” Rey asked, tentatively eying both him and the recording as he went back to and replayed the same moment several times.

“Not sure..” he said absentmindedly, “But whoever told him to assassinate at least one of us didn’t tell him about his blaster being rigged with an explosive.”

She leaned forward to get a better look, hands clutched around the edge of the bed so tight her knuckles were growing whiter and whiter.

“If he had…He would’ve moved closer. To one of us. Or waited for us to approach him so we’d both get the full blast..” Rey build on his theory, shock at the discovery pulsing through the Force around her.

Ben nodded, saying gravely, “This was a warning.”

“What for?” Rey asked warily as he Force-pulled the data cube so it flew to his hand which swiftly closed around it.

He turned his back on her, pacing deliberately slow to give himself some time to think of an answer. Should he share his suspicions when he couldn’t yet be sure of the truth of them? Would he worry her needlessly if he did? Should he get rid off Hux regardless of who was behind this attack? It could also been a coincidence it had been that stormtrooper.. Maybe Hux hadn’t realized he had recognized him; hadn’t seen the connection between him and that specific stormtrooper. That he was one of the handful he had tasked with sealing Snoke’s remains in that pod; the memories of which he had removed. Or thought he had.

Ben halted, seeing the bloody and torn armor before him again; seeing that number, knowing that instant what it could mean. Someone had sent that particular stormtrooper on purpose. He’d blown him up. Just to send a message..

Should he, then, keep a cur, as Snoke had called the General of his army, which he at least knew close? Or should he remove him and risk others he did not know to take his place and prove unable to command as Hux, the master mind behind the military training programs, did. After all, if he cut off one head, more could grow in its place..

“What’s wrong? What warning?” Rey repeated more pressingly, posture tense but ready for whatever he chose to tell her. 

“A warning.. A threat.. To expose our vulnerability. That we aren’t gods but merely humans of flesh and bone. Despite our powers. And that because of it others who want our position can succeed in taking it from us.. But I won’t let them.” He told her in a low but clear voice, muttering that last sentence, that promise, as he stood before her, enveloping her with his body and cradling her head against his chest. He just hoped she wouldn’t hear the incriminating thumping of his heart so close to her ear. How it was either that or a veiled threat to expose how he had killed Supreme Leader Snoke; _a meaningful reminder that the penalty for high treason was death.._

(…)

His deep, slow breathing was like a balm after that one, terrifying moment of chaos and fear. Rey pulled her knees up to her chin, wrapped her arms tightly around them and simply watched Ben sleep a little longer. To keep her thoughts, her theories and suspicions at bay a little longer too.

He sat slumped in the curved windowsill that ran the entire length of one side of the medical facility. His head had lolled to the side and now rested against the glass, his breath misting it every other heartbeat.

But his silently sleeping form felt deceptive somehow. The lines in his face were taut instead of relaxed; his brows creased as if in a scowl; and, although not opening, his eyes moved restlessly under their heavy lids.

“Excuse me, Empress.” One of the med-droids had approached her, she only now noticed it as its whirring hand gestured to a point somewhere behind it, “You have a visitor.”

Rey practically leapt to her feet at the sight of the dark, menacing figure waiting for consent to step over the threshold and into the facility. She felt most of the tension rushing through her body flow away the moment she recognized the silver cobweb on Ika Ren’s mask.

She thanked the droid and dismissed it, weaving around the others to address the knight. “What is it?”

“Empress..” Ika Ren bowed but seemed to struggle to say more once she had unbent her back.

“Yes?” Rey pressed, abandoning her approach and maintaining instead enough of a distance to feel safe now she’d suddenly stiffened at the faceless woman’s almost tangible hesitation. What if she herself and not Ben had been the target earlier today? What if Ika Ren had come to finish the job now she had survived? But why…? Because she had discovered that she had been reading up on Finn?

When Ika still didn’t move or speak but still seemed just as much a prey to some internal debate, Rey moved her hand in what she hoped was an inconspicuous way to find the blaster still attached to her belt.

 _Or was it something else?_ she reflected, sensing uncertainty rather than any murderous intent rippling the Force around the knight. _Had she come because she knew more about the attack?_  

“Will..” Ika finally began, “Will his entire batch be punished for what he did?”

It took Rey a moment to deduce who she was referring to. “You mean the stormtrooper?”

The knight gave a curt, nervous nod.

“Why would the rest of his unit be punished?” Rey asked, puzzled. She instantly regretted the glaring naivety of the question when, although she could not directly see eyes swiveling in her direction, Ika lifted her head to look at her with what could only be sincere curiosity.

 _Of course_ , Rey thought bitterly, _the cruel military system that pervaded every corner of this grand army would demand retaliation. It was not a decision she was looking forward to making.._

“I don’t know.” she eventually answered honestly, or as honestly as she could afford to, releasing her precautionary hold on the blaster. “We need to establish first why he did it and whether he was working on his own… Whether he even acted of his own free will.”

“I agree.” came the quick, fervent reply. “Forgive me, Empress.” Ika added at spotting her intrigued amusement, “It’s just.. You’re..”

“I’m what?”

“You’re not like the others. Any of them. The knights, I mean.”

“It’s the mask.” Rey quipped, prompting Ika to nod at her in appreciation. Smiling back she glanced sidewards at Ben, an instinctive desire to confirm he was still here as well as fast asleep.

“Empress?”

She instantly reverted her attention to the knight at her serious tone. “Yes?”

“I.. I wish I could.. Maybe you should kn-”

Ika broke off, her sudden rigidity coinciding with the barely audible rustle of a cloak and a distinct, pointed shadow rippling on the hallway’s shining floor.

“I’m sorry.” Ika apologized hurriedly, sweeping out of the medical center before Rey could say anything, let alone act.

“Wait-” She almost instantly stopped in herself in her tracks again as she had made to follow, casting a troubled look over her shoulder.

_Ben…_

There was no time to lose. If she had in fact formed a connection with the knight, it was up to her to find out more. To pursue this opportunity by herself.

Rey swept out of the room, forcing herself not to look back and biting out a clipped “No one enters.” to the palace guards flanking the exit.

She barely registered their simultaneous “Yes, Empress!” as she rushed down the hallway.

(…)

The freighter slowly but surely took shape around him even against his will. The more he fought it, the more solid the Millennium Falcon seemed to become. For what seemed an unbearably long stretch of time he was just there, surrounded by his father’s pride. His true _home_. Han Solo’s. Not _his_. He both hated the place and reluctantly remembered the fonder memories, few as they were, which were inseparably tied to it.

To find the only outlet for his frustration that seemed available to him, Ben paced the length of the corridor, grinding his teeth and balling his fists until it hurt when that growling something inside him only swelled more wildly and untamed. It seemed to take up all of him. Eat him from the inside out. And there was nothing he could do to-

He halted abruptly. The walls and ceiling around him were transforming. At first he thought that some kind of dark weed crawled over it, then he realized that parts of it had changed into patches of a crude, brown material that looked like dried up clay smeared over rough fabric. Then flames flickered into life around him with the first voice echoing once again through the freighter.

 _is it you? you..? you.._ The woman’s voice croaked in a tired, incredulous whisper. Ben swiveled around his axis, already knowing he wouldn’t see her anywhere.

 _I’m here, mom. mom.. you’re safe.. safe.. you’re safe now.._ The boy now sounding like a young man assured her, doubt and pain mingling his would-be confident tone.  

 _my son.. son.._ ….. _I’m so proud of you.. proud.. I missed.. I.. I missed you.._ The woman breathed out with what sounded like her last ounce of strength. Before he could stop himself Ben had called out, “Who are you?? What do you want from me??”

_my son.. son.._

“I’m _not_ your son!” he bellowed back, “You gave your son away!”

He took a few seething breaths, glaring around him but no one answered.

“Where-”

The mother’s voice drowned his new outburst before it could swell in volume, something that Ben hardly understood seeing it was now nothing more than a hoarse, dying sigh.

_now I am complete.. complete.. I am.. complete.._

_stay with me mom..!_ The boy that the young man was once sounded more pronounced in his voice, their agony intensifying in a surge of long-endured but repressed yearning and suffering. _stay.. stay with me.. mom! mom…!_

The hair in the back of Ben’s neck and on his arms rose as one in the chill that ran down his spine. Even as those last words still echoed all around him the falcon started to dilute like colors in too much water, both voices bleeding into one another until they were smothered in the dissolving dream.

“No! Wait! Wait!!” Ben cried out but he woke up regardless, any answers he might’ve gotten slipping through his hold, immaterial and dispersing into nothingness like dust.

The medical center came back into focus. Many-colored lights blinking almost reproachfully at him for his anger at them. At them med droids shuffling around. At reality replacing vision, dream or nightmare, despite his effort to delay the transition.

He got to his feet. Mind still stubbornly somewhere between asleep and awake. Then one glaring observation sucked him back so violently into this world that he nearly slammed into the wall with the shock of it.

_Rey wasn’t here._

And yet he could sense her. Clearly. An erratic pulse of broiling energy.

He tore out of the room and made for her force signature that spiked close by, an upsurge of energy incredibly dark and foreboding.... 

(…)

Rey almost slipped when she whirled into the atrium, shoulder bumping painfully into the doorframe. She rubbed it automatically in response, hardly paying attention to the movement and instantly abandoning it as she saw the two dark figures up ahead amid a tangle of dead stormtroopers. They lay spread-eagled and in crumpled heaps at the feet of one while the other kneeled among their lifeless forms. All of them were cast in the vibrant, red glow of the scythe-like weapon the knight towering over the other raised high over her head, the beak protruding from her mask quivering in savage anticipation.

“Stop!” Rey shouted, fumbling for the blaster and aiming it as she ran. Tori Ren reflected the laser bolts easily, the scythe in her hands deftly swinging around her in dizzying arcs. The bolts refracted on the steel, peppering the tall windows like fiery hail. Annoyed at the ineffectiveness of her attack Rey cast the blaster aside, it spun away catching the pale light of the indigo twin moons outside so that it sparkled with a cold luster.

Ika Ren stirred suddenly, letting out an exhausted but enraged groan and lashing out with her lance in an attempt to take advantage of the momentary distraction. But her adversary wouldn’t be surprised. Tori angled her weapon to block the blow. She scoffed at her fellow knight’s trembling arms as she proved too strong for her. In one swift motion she pushed the lance off, throwing it out of Ika’s hands and hitting her hard in the face with the butt of her macabre weapon even before it clattered loudly on the floor, laser-edge sizzling out.

“No! Don’t do this!” Rey bellowed, something close to fear surging through her now Tori again lifted the scythe to strike one final time at the already eerily still form of Ika at her feet. She Force-summoned the downed knight’s weapon, praying to whatever deity was out there she would make it in time. The lance soared through the air like an arrow, reigniting with a fierce hiss the moment it slammed against her waiting palm. She ducked under Tori’s outstretched posture, ending up in a crouch with Ika’s unmoving body touching her heel as the scythe cleaved downwards, threatening finality in its power and speed.

She only just caught it with the long, slender handle of the lance, both hands clutching it tightly, the familiarity with which she had held her quarterstaff all those years on Jakku instantly returning. It had helped her survive the barren planet where everyone needed to fend for themselves. Where everyone preyed on everyone else to ensure that very survival. But she was done being the scavenger that accepted that as true and inevitable. Done with that violent circle in which lives counted for far less than they were worth. Done letting this knight go unpunished for discarding of those stormtroopers when she could’ve spared them. And for what? For bearing witness to their duel? For wanting to help one of them..?

Ika Ren had wanted to tell her something. And now she didn’t know if she would ever get the chance to find out what. To find her role in this story with it. Perhaps Ben would call it naive. But she knew who of these two knights she had begun to trust. And which one she didn’t. If that was due to the same gullibility that had led her to Ben, then she would only trust it even more..

“How fitting I get to finish two traitors instead of just the one, my _Empress_.” Tori snarled, spitting the title mockingly at her. The edge of her scythe was inches away from her face, Rey felt the intense heat on her skin, a strand of her hair singing as the crystal-powered laser touched it. She bore her teeth, letting out a frustrated growl that grew more predatory as it unleashed that darkness in her that she had brushed passed before, that she had sensed as a part of her, a part that Luke had warned her not to use; a part that was eating away at Ben, destroying him. But she didn’t stop herself. She plunged right in.

She closed her eyes, reveling in the sense of this new power unlocked within her, eager to release it on her enemy. She could not contain its craving, its _need_ to cause pain even if she had wanted to. Rey channeled it through her, barely avoiding drowning in its aggression herself and at her thought alone a violent torrent of the Force spread outwards all at once. Tori was instantly lifted off her feet, she rolled over and over across the smooth floor, finally using her scythe to anchor herself. Cursing she quickly recovered, getting to her feet and swaying for a moment longer as Rey rose to hers and prowled towards her, lance ready in her balled fist. 

Tori reached out with one hand, fingers contorted in their malicious manipulation of the Force. One by one she lifted up the stormtroopers’ dead bodies and hurled them at Rey. Disgust filled her at the knight’s action as she repelled each and every one of them with a regretful but effortless flick of her free hand. Tori could only laugh cruelly at her sentiment, compassionate light mingling with a dominant darkness. Fueled by an addictive hate for the knight Rey repressed the spark of brightness, allowing the Dark side to sweep her up in its, _their_ , blind fury.  

It was as if she was only half in control of her own limbs. Less than half of her mind aware of what she was doing. Her heartbeat pounding louder and louder against her ears until it was deafening and rammed against her ribs in a wild tattoo that matched its pace with the calculated and greedy movements of the lance.

_All those years of waiting… Of biding her time, patiently, loyally.. And for what? To her parents she’d been nothing more than something to trade, like a power coupling or some other inanimate organ she’d gutted every single day from those decaying star destroyers and had never considered worthless in every way except as an object to exchange for rations; rations she needed to survive long enough for her family to come back.. Only now did she feel the repressed anger she had denied ever feeling. And its release felt…good.._

Tori’s counter-attacks became more and more frantic until she lunged at her in an uncontrolled frenzy. Rey scoffed at the futility of it, corner of her mouth curved in amused disdain as she could foresee the desperate move that was supposed to kill her. Instead she lashed out and cut the weapon in half, swinging her lance from one side to the other, every time hitting her mark as if she was simply practicing on a rock again. The ritual of it consumed her, made her not see or hear anything but her own hard, regulated breathing and the red blur that the head of her lance had become dancing through the air, seamlessly responding to her every intent and direction.

With a last, swift stroke the beak protruding from Tori’s mask flew through the air, the scar it left glowing like a midday sun burning the sand. Rey kicked her down so she fell on her back, helpless and beaten. Then she twirled the lance upside down, raised it with both hands and it plummeted at her will, skewering the knight with such strength that the Force imbued in the attack cracked the marble in concentric circles of broken stone; had the chandelier come crushing down.

Rey panted, sweat dripping from her temples and the haze lifted as the tinkling rain and dust of pulverized diamonds settled, confronting her with the reality of what she had done.

Her eyes widened in horror as they traveled over the deep, serrated gouges marring Tori Ren’s body, the dark robes soaked in even darker stains. The lance fell from her grasp and she staggered back, away from the carnage she had inflicted.

Rey pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle a terrified choke even as her consciousness slipped away. She slammed into one of the pillars upholding the vaulted ceiling, the intricate carvings scraping her spine as she slid down it and into the puddle of someone else’s blood pooling around her…


	21. Chapter 21

**A/N: Thank you for the kudos, I appreciate every single one of them! I hope everyone's 2019 is off to a good start & I'd love to know your thoughts on the story so far~**

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Chapter 21

Her skin was white like the sun-bleached bones of a Happabore; pale and dull and drained of all life. Her eyelids were more opaque somehow but her lashes strangely translucent in contrast. Framing her face, her short cropped hair was a lackluster rose-gold that had all light stolen from it by the mask that usually trapped it. The ends of it stood up in crisscrossing angles, resembling ruffled feathers among which glittered a gold, fine chain anchored in both the helix and lobe of her ear; a precious treasure in the nest of a covetous bird.

Rey stood unmoving next to the softly humming repulsor-bed, the harmonic chorus of _beeps_ and _blips_ emitted by the surrounding equipment and monitors almost lulling her into a light doze. She stared, captivated, at the face she saw for the first time. The data-stream appearing on the transparent medical cocoon intermittently stained it with moving ribbons of its harsh, warmthless glare; curving graphs and diagnoses projected on the pallid skin only to vanish and then reappear a fraction of a second later. It was the only -and not very hopeful- outward sign of Ika Ren’s body fighting to stay alive.

A med-droid whizzed passed, equally impassive as her exact copies also on duty; devoid of the sense of urgency that threatened to spill over Rey’s lips; made her throat tighten painfully. Witnessing the knight’s fragility was a shocking as it was nerve-wrecking. She needed Ika to live. She needed her to tell her what she’d already been on the verge of telling her. She needed her to provide her with a role in this story. She needed her to survive this.

... _If only to justify_ - 

Rey obstructed the current of that thought with a grim stubbornness, not surprised when it still easily broke through.

_To justify what? That she had lost control? That she had given in to the Dark Side; willingly and hungrily? That maybe she hadn’t simply intervened because Tori Ren had been about to kill a fellow knight? That she had allowed hate to guide her instead to avenge the near and still potential destruction of a chance to finally know what it was that she was supposed to do?_

Arms tight against her sides she clenched her fists, nails digging into the soft flesh of her palms. Rey blinked, tears burning and itching in the corner of her eyes as she felt for the thread between them, a thread she had been ignoring just as she had been avoiding Ben; a thread she nevertheless felt the presence of every waking and possibly every sleeping moment too. But she could not follow it to him. Have him travel it to the quivering center of her soul.

_After all, how could she bring Ben back to the light when her own darkness was spreading…?_

… _And, by the same token, how would she find any answers that might help her when her light wouldn’t permit her darkness from doing what had to be done?_

Rey slowly lifted a trembling hand, uncurling her fingers above the cocoon and focusing her mind on the one beneath it. Taking a deep breath she repressed any remaining hesitation as best she could and invaded Ika’s jumbled and dazed thoughts. It was easy with the knight so vulnerable in her current stupor. It was all there for her to see. Every secret unguarded. Every memory accessible.

Brow furrowed in concentration she rifled through the rush of images and sounds, of faces and voices that she could only connect after she had sifted through all the memories and information that presented itself to her. Gradually the random order didn’t prevent her from making sense of the most important of them; chaos became structure; smaller pieces fitting into a bigger picture.

It was overwhelming just how many of their faces she had engraved on her memory. How she could see them through their pristinely white helmets. How deeply she felt connected to them. How much it hurt her when they died. How her loyalty to them, no matter how impossible and difficult to show, was mutual. How trust had grown between this one knight of Ren and the anonymous soldiers she had to command as if they were dispensable and necessary, _acceptable_ , collateral damage.

Rey’s breath hitched as she sensed the one resounding conclusion in every fiber of her being.

_Every single one of these stormtroopers were ready to answer her call for mutiny-_

“Would you permit me to take over your vigilance, Empress?” a metallic but still silken voice suddenly asked from behind her, shattering her concentration all at once.

“You have been here for hours.” Yara Ren insisted, gliding around the repulsor-bed until she stood opposite her, staring down at the young woman’s face lacking any expression, her own hidden behind the mask and impossible to make out. Rey needed all her willpower to swiftly and fully withdraw from another’s mind to guard her own instead.

“No.” she said in clipped tones, praying her unwanted visitor hadn’t glimpsed what she just had.

Yara remained motionless for a moment, then she nodded with an apologetic grace as if she regretted the impertinence in her request but she followed it up a little too quickly to be convincing with another, obviously premeditated offer, “Then allow me to thank you.”

“Thank me?” Rey repeated warily, “For what?”

The knight cleverly treated her suspicion as humility instead and acknowledged it with an  aseptic flurry of the Force around her before elaborating, “For ridding us of one of our own who ceased to be truly a part of us some time ago. Who drifted so far that she would have killed a sister for no reason but to satisfy her own paranoid quest for greater power.”

Yara placed her fingers gingerly on the medical cocoon as if in explicit worry that it might shatter at her touch; as if it shared the same vulnerability as the knight it shielded and monitored; as if one would break with the other.

Rey was almost overcome with the impulse to snatch the hand away, break every single finger trapping Ika’s face as she pried them from the cocoon.

“It saddens me you had to kill her, of course,” Yara went on, hand at long last sliding off and enveloping her other in her lap instead, “but she left you with no choice.”

She started pacing pensively, still striking Rey as nothing more than a mockery of hesitation. But she then she hadn’t expected the knight’s next words. Hadn’t been prepared for her confession.

“She wasn’t always like this. None of us were. Not just our names are different. _We_ are. Tori most of all. Don’t get me wrong,” Yara emphasized, raising a hand in semi-surrender and pausing her pacing to look at her directly, “We all craved to learn this power and none of us would part with it willingly, not anymore. But not everyone could handle that.. That _corruption_. Tori wasn’t strong enough to not be corroded by it. So I _am_ grateful, Empress. You see, in the end, Tori had already erased all who she had ever been herself, you showed her mercy by ending the suffering it resulted in.”    

“I don’t want your gratitude.” Rey bit out. _I don’t deserve it_.., she added in her mind,  then pushed the terrible thought away and said aloud instead, “And I don’t believe there couldn’t have been another outcome.”

_If there wasn’t…_ Rey felt a surge of panic rush through her, prompting her to once again ball her hands into even tighter fists; to crush in them that paralyzing fear. _If there wasn’t_.. _Then it could be too late for Ben as well.._  

Yara’s gaze remained trained on her, transfixed in apparent contemplation. “I wonder..” she started with just enough enticing mystery in her tone to hold on to Rey’s attention, to pique her interest even against her better judgement.

“Maybe we share the same goal after all..” she suggested, hands folding into one another and resting in her lap again, voice losing even more of the grating distortion caused by the mask next, “I know why you’re here, Empress. I know what it is you try to achieve. What you want more than anything.”

Rey’s heart hammered madly at the statement she wasn’t sure wasn’t an accusation. She desperately tried to steel her emotions, to have the Force solidify protectively between her and the knight who continued calmly.

“Has it ever occurred to you that you might not be the only one who strives for the exact same thing? That we both struggle in our attempt? I seek to reclaim a fellow pupil turned master against his will. A master caught between going back to who he once was or being lost forever in who he was made to be by other, crueler minds. You want the same. You want to bring your..” Yara paused, with subtle deliberation or genuine diplomacy, Rey couldn’t tell.

The knight tilted her head as if to gloss over and undo the unspoken word, the unsaid implication, that had hovered tentatively and momentarily in the air between them, “To bring the Emperor back to the light. To bury Kylo Ren. And to bring back _Ben_..”   

That last word, his name, his _real_ name, baffled Rey into absolute silence; words were stuck in her throat and that immobilizing fear was again shooting through her veins, making her heart throb against the accompanying tightness closing it in.  

Yara pretended not to notice, finally averting her gaze and resumed her pacing . _To spare her? Or to exploit the opportunity her evident distress offered to be used as a bargaining chip?_

“Forgive my bluntness, Empress, but you will fail. I think you know this. To return him to the Light you need to truly understand the Dark. To release your own to finally understand his.” Yara made for the exit, not turning back until she stood on the threshold, black robe rippling at her ankles and her mask glinting a pearly silver.

“I can help you.. If it is your wish.. If you really want to save him.. Let me help you. And we can do it together..”

Rey couldn’t stop herself from staring at the knight, trembling and not knowing what to think. Before she could say anything, or even move a muscle, Yara Ren reverted back to her usual, smooth formality as if she had not just laid bare her intentions and offered cooperation. _Offered help.. A way to save Ben?_

_The_ only _way?_

The knight bent her back in a reverent bow, greeted her with a curt and polite “Empress.”, and then glided out of the room, leaving Rey utterly lost in the approaching storm the Force enveloping her contained and with no idea how to brace herself against its violent impact...

(…)

He beheaded the sparring droid with a wild, unrestrained slash, electric sparks of bisected circuitry a rain of bright gold specks melting away in the volatile, saw-like edges of his red saber but leaving bright spots etched on his retinas. Ben slumped, shoulders hunching to both contain and ward off the immense rage of his current powerlessness. It boiled inside him and barraged his outer defenses, trapping him in it. And so he had dealt with it resorting to the only way he knew how to; venting it on anything but himself, no matter how much he was really hurting himself as well.

He was breathing hard in exhaustion, sweat running down his face and moist hair sticking to his temples and forehead, obscuring his vision. He rubbed his face down with one leather-gloved hand, not opening it and wonder at the rain caught inside as he had done that day, when Rey-

The emotional turmoil inside him whipped up into a storm at even thinking her name and he pounded his fist against the wall to quench it. A part of him relished the sharpness of the pain that rattled his knuckles and traveled to the core of his palm. The same part that also regretted how it blunted with every labored breath, how it dissipated but did not numb the restless gale buffeting him inside and out.  

He willed himself to unclench his fist, stretching his stiff, unresponsive fingers, and focus on the numb ache in them which receded more with every bending and unbending. Eventually he punched in a set of commands on the nearest console, grabbed a hold of his saber, raised it up as he adopted a fighting stance and waited for the next droid to come to life.

It soon met the same fate as its handful of predecessors. So did the next. And the next. Ben carelessly shoved them aside with a simple current of the Force, piling them up onto their miserable scrapheap. He tore and ripped each of them apart with more vehemence, more wrath. But directing his aggression onto them did not lessen it one bit. It made it roar and swell instead.

Suddenly all the air was forced out of his lungs as he received the droid’s unforeseen blow. He swore he could hear a rib or two crack. He destroyed his programmed opponent with a seething outburst, saber cutting it in half as it sliced upwards in a greedy arc.   

Ben sunk down against the nearest wall, unwilling to admit just how exhausted he was and how much he needed that tangible support to keep him from collapsing. Blade silenced, his weapon clung to his limp hand resting beside him on the floor, the handle still hot and angry in his palm.

Like a moth drawn to a flame he groped around for the string tying them together. As always it was there. Ready to materialize at his merest, mental perusal. He could feel her at the other end of it. Vaguely. Morphed into a specter-like presence. It was as if she purposefully remained just out of sight; as if she didn’t want him to see more than her blurry contours in a thickening mist of her own making. He supposed he should be grateful that she hadn’t severed the connection all together.

_Maybe she should…_

Maybe she was right to distance herself from him. She had. Ever since he had found her all bloodied in the atrium with Tori Ren’s maimed body at her feet. Something had either taken a hold of her or finally been dislodged. She had tolerated rather than welcomed or craved for his attempts to comfort her, instead disappearing into the bathroom to take a shower which had lasted for hours.  

_Did she know? Had she realized the truth that had been gradually dawning on him too?_

Ben let out a shuddering breath as every single image of her raced through his mind. The way she had fought him on Starkiller Base. How she had ousted him from her mind. How her energy was like brightness digging into a dark earth like roots. How her loneliness contained that same sting he had felt all his life. How she tapped into the Force and explored the raw, untamed power of it to either drain or fill the emptiness inside her. _Them_.

All of it, _all of it_ , confirmed what he already knew. What he had known for a while now. Ever since Snoke had boasted that it had been him bridging their minds. But he hadn’t. It hadn’t been the master. It had been the apprentice. An apprentice’s longing to share his suffering with someone who understood. It had been an unconscious act. An instinctive awakening of her latent abilities. An unintended insight into his training and a lifetime of experiencing what she had only just begun to feel. A desperate transferal of powers, leaking from his exposed mind to hers; bleeding from his heart to hers..

_Maybe she should stay away from him. Maybe he shouldn’t contaminate her even more._

Ben hated the tears streaming down his searing skin. Hated how cold his heated body felt. Hated himself.

_He had created her. Had given her this struggle._

His heart beat more and more frantically, that fear of losing her slamming into him. _If_ she knew, she must hate him..  

_How couldn’t she? It had been him who had set her on a similar path to become the monster he was.._  

(…)

The insects were buzzing around, bobbing along on a breeze that carried the sweet scents of a myriad of flowers. Eyes closed, Rey inhaled all of it, heard every tiny wing’s fluttering, felt the vibration that rippled the air unseen because of it. The glass shell of the greenhouses was warm against her back, the sun having shone upon it for the greater part of the day already.

Even through her eyelids she could see the sentinels pass outside, their elongated shadows blocking the orange glow pressing against them for a fraction of a second. She sighed, realizing she had once more allowed herself to be distracted. The connecting web she had tried to spin through meditation half-finished and already falling apart. _Again_.

The more she wished to merge with the Force, to feel linked _with_ , not isolated from the world around her, the more difficult it had become. She supposed it was also her lack of practice. Or maybe her motive was most to blame.

She shifted uncomfortably, squeezing her eyes even tighter shut to trap the tears threatening to spill out. The truth was that she simply wanted to disappear for a bit. To not think. To not _feel_. Her disappointment with herself was too much to bear. An overwhelming weight; a dragging sensation, as if she’d stepped into a sinking field and the sand was pulling her down into its smothering and crushing depths.

It had been days since she’d talked to Ben. She’d kept avoiding him. Repressed the need and longing to be close to him. To feel connected to him and him alone. To seek and find solace in their bond. But she couldn’t indulge herself. He would probably no longer permit her either. He must’ve lost faith in her just like she had in herself. She. _His supposed savior_..

Remembering her bold claim that she would help him, that she would turn him and bring Ben Solo back to the light released a bitter taste in her mouth now. It had become painfully clear how incapable she was to fulfill that ambitious promise. She was losing control of her own light. Couldn’t stop her darkness from spreading.

_Just how would she conquer his?!_   

Back of her head resting against the glass, her eyes blinked open so she could glare at the paradise around her. She had never even seen most of these colors. Hadn’t known they existed in the same galaxy she grew up in. Right now it didn’t seem to be a part of her galaxy. Or maybe she wasn’t instead. Maybe she had never been meant to be surrounded by anything but the corrosive, colorless sand.

There was a shuffling sound, as of the light patter of soft-soled feet. Tired with her thoughts running around in the same gloomy circle Rey angled her head towards it. An older woman with a dirt-stained apron knelt down in a flowerbed, cradling a new seedling in one hand and digging a hole for it with the shovel she held in her other.

Rey slowly got to her feet, struck by the resemblance between herself and the woman and the tender way she had cared for the rare flower she had sometimes been able to unearth in the barren wasteland that was Jakku.

The woman startled at her approach, shovel falling from her grip and the budding flower accidentally trod upon as she hastened to increase the distance between them.

“Forgive me, my Empress… I-I didn’t know you were here..” the old woman stammered, tone riddled with a rising panic. Then, seeing the limp and drooping head of the flower her eyes widened in fear and she cowered in anticipation of a rebuke. Of punishment. When it didn’t come she made to retreat like a frightened mouse running away from the cat that appeared too lazy or too unwilling to kill her prey immediately.

“Wait..! Don’t go. I’ll.. I’ll fix it.” Rey offered, kneeling down herself in the flowerbed and gingerly picking up the seedling. She placed it in the small hole and covered it with the earth. Hands cupped together and palms downwards she reached out. This time the living Force around her heeded her summoning. She felt a radiant warmth so different from the sun’s tingle her hands and then the rest of her body, felt the wholesome energy throb and hum in unison with the air, the earth, and finally the fragile plant.

The seedling contained strains of both death and life. The way they intertwined, coexisted almost, was mesmerizing. A part of her told her she should not interfere. That she should allow nature to take its course. To let the Force work as it worked. But then she felt her darkness resonate with the cold, lifeless veins running through the seedling’s signature and called upon her light instead. It happened so gradually Rey only realized what she had done when she heard the gardener’s amazed gasp.

Looking down she saw how the young plant had peeped through the earth burying it; how it shot up and blossomed into full bloom as if time had increased it’s pace or simply released itself temporarily from its restraints.

The old woman knelt down beside her, hands clapped together in gratitude before she placed them on hers, her calloused skin surprisingly smooth against her own and that lingering, tingling warmth passing freely between them. Rey simply nodded in response to the woman’s broad, admiring smile, feeling embarrassed and somehow uneasy at her action. She couldn’t help but half-expect the Force to disapprove of her meddling.

Unaware of her ruminations the woman got to her feet, bowed and left, humming a light tune to herself as she went. The sprinklers activated as she passed them. But the woman didn’t notice. Hadn’t switched them on using any of the control panels scattered around. And yet they spouted water.

Rey’s breathed hitched now she began to understand. Now she thought she could glimpse the new found insight the Force was showing her. She saw it clearly now, for a split second but that was enough. It was the same Force in her and the woman. A latent connection to all of it. And it could be awoken-

The radiance of the sudden revelation dimmed, a cloud blocking the sun’s rays; an eclipse like the one she’d perceived all those weeks ago in the throne room. But it was harder to believe now that those rays would reappear. With the turmoil of light and dark within her it felt more like she had passed on a disease.. 

Her hands fell back into her lap, forlorn and powerless, and she just watched with a heavy heart the droplets momentary weightlessness in the receding woman’s aura, tumbling around like liquid pearls before finally dripping down on the flowers’ waiting petals, breaking the spell and drowning the glorious discovery in their tiny galaxies as they did.


	22. Chapter 22

**A/N: Thanks for the kudos everyone!! & Special shout-out to cszmommy for leaving me a comment! Enjoy~**

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Chapter 22

He didn’t know what had made him do it but now he stood there, at the center of a bustling atrium, Ika Ren’s lance in one hand as he stared down at the fractured web spreading outward from under his boots. Visible evidence of her power- _His_ power? The power he had awoken in her? Had transferred to her? Who did it belong to? Did it even matter? Would an answer to those questions make her less scared of herself than she must be at this point? As _he_ had been. Still was. A part of him at least. The part that had always felt inadequate; a flawed vessel for the Force as well as a son that should’ve been everything he wasn’t.

Ben increased his grasp on the lance, tempted to break it in two and let it clatter to the floor. He hated not being in control. Not knowing what was going on right in front of him. How the knights were just as much of a threat as he had dreaded they would be, hovering just out of sight and weaving themselves into the growing or perhaps the reemerging gap between him and Rey. And then there were those stormtroopers..

He had conducted a quiet investigation into the handful of stormtroopers he had planned for to keep his incriminating secret; for them to not even be aware that they carried it. With every new piece of the puzzle he had discovered along the way his sense of unease had increased exponentially. They were all dead. _All of them_. One by one they had been killed under suspicious circumstances or either had simply vanished into thin air if the dead ends their files lead to were in fact genuine.    

But he hadn’t come that much closer to finding out who was behind it. Who had wanted to send him a message and set him on a trail that would be a repetition of that same, subtle threat. His only relief was that it seemed aimed at him and him alone. Not at Rey.

_For now at least…_

It was why he needed to keep a clear head and not get sidetracked by dreams or visions that haunted him at night. They were an immaterial nuisance. Nothing more. He shouldn’t let them become more. He had already freed himself of the burden of a father that had never even tried to understand his own flesh and blood. Had indirectly dealt with the guilt of his uncle who had paid the only appropriate price. Had successfully cut himself off from the mother who had sent him away-

Ben winced as he tasted blood on his tongue. That last thought had splintered the lance in his hold; had made him accidentally bite his lip at the jolt of steel twanging through his hand and arm because of it.

He didn’t know who those voices belonged to, those of the mother and her son visiting his nightmares, but he hated how they were trying to tell him something; _something he didn’t want to hear_ …

Not that it would help him if he _did_ listen. Acted on it even. It was impossible. Too late.

He casted the lance aside, the ruined steel crunching under his heels as he made to leave the atrium, delegates and officers discreetly and tactfully ignoring him.

It was nothing short of a wry irony that he had to go to _that_ place. That the sympathizers of the Chandrillan protestors still imprisoned aboard the orbiting Dominance had chosen _that_ building to occupy in order to demand their heroes’ release.  

Least of all Ben didn’t want to take Rey with him. Not now she was struggling so much with the burden _he_ had placed on her. Not now she wanted to disconnect from the source that had caused it. From _him_.

But it would be even more dangerous to go without her. Blinded as he still may be to the hidden plot to tighten the noose around his neck, he did take that threat very seriously.

_And he would die before they used Rey to get to him_..

Heart thrumming determinedly Ben made a beeline for the solitary figure huddled inside the greenhouses; a palace of glass that glittered like a jewel in the dying sun.

(…)

The manifold staccato grinding of pebbles alerted her to the guards’ dismissal at Ben’s approach. She had felt his presence nearing but the glumness of her current reality had failed to make her realize just how close he already was. It felt meaningless to get to her feet. To sneak out and find another hiding place. It would be a crueler test to look him in the eyes and still deny her own need to reconnect with him. To confess to her defeat against her own darkness without saying the words; without shattering out loud that promise to help him find his way back to the light.

The budding sense of purpose that had filled her not too long ago now felt like an almost callous gift from the Force that was spiraling out of control inside of her. Maybe it was her own fault for wanting to belong to another life than the one she had had. To be a part of the bigger stories threading the universe together. To not be Rey of nowhere, an orphaned scavenger eking out a miserable existence on Jakku among countless others who were equally forgotten by all the stars surrounding it.

“Rey?” he tentatively called out to her before ducking through the ivy-ridden archway. His voice sounded almost hoarse and she suspected he must’ve been equally trapped in his own pestering thoughts, barely talking to anyone and closing himself off instead. It was what she had done for the past days. It was all she _could_ do.  

“I’m here.” she replied in a soft mumble, not really sure that she was. Somehow she felt too scattered and lost to be solid enough to be present anywhere.   

Ben crouched down in front of her, not too close and not too far but at a distance that was somewhere between the strange borders of impersonal and intimate. “I know.” he said, gaze directed downwards like hers, “You have been here…a lot.”

She wasn’t sure if she heard accusing regret or relieved gratitude in that statement. Did he expect her to leave? Did he _want_ her to leave..?

“Paradise.” she muttered, eyes briefly flicking to their lush surroundings, the bitterness tinging her tone more pronounced as her heart drummed in a painful beat at that possibility. That he _wanted_ her to leave..

“The illusion of it.” Ben corrected her with a tired grimness. His head dropped even lower, dark strands of his hair falling forward with the movement.

The rhythm against her ribs instantly swelled at his vulnerable melancholy.

_What if instead of helping him she had come terrifyingly close to extinguishing the last of his light?_

She had given him false hope. She had given them _both_ false hope..

“Maybe that’s all we were ever supposed to get..” she whispered, voice breaking at the end of that unforgiving truth.

For a split second their eyes met, their bond responding instantly with a sudden surge that made it so incredibly close to bursting out of their mutual, fearful repression of it. It felt like roots trying to shoot through rock because of the sheer yearning to reach their counterparts always seeking each other in the earth. And the rock trembled because of it. Would be nothing to stop them if they gave in to it. If just one of them was the first one to take a step forward into the gaping abys and trust there was a bridge. _Still_. 

“Ben..” she didn’t know if it was meant as a plea or a warning. She just sat there, arms wrapped protectively around her knees pressed against her body, the same paralyzing doubt and loneliness staring back at her.

“I feel the more I know or try to find out about the Force, about all of this, the more I don’t understand. I thought I would find my purpose. That I would see it if I just looked hard enough. Hear it if I just learned to listen. But.. But now I’m not sure it works that way. That maybe.. Maybe I’m doing it wrong.”

There was an instinctive tug at their bond on his end. _An offer of support? A flicker of worry that he hadn’t been able to contain?_ She could only guess. To allow their bond to return fully was too overwhelming. Rey retreated from it, scared and unsure of what he would say if she told him..

“What do you mean?” he asked, cautiously placing his hand in the crook of her neck, his gloved thumb caressing her jawline in one soothing brush and his eyes unwaveringly aimed on hers; both searching for an anchorage they couldn’t find on their own. But they weren’t alone. They never had been.. No one was. Not really. Everyone was connected through the Force.. _Everyone_..

“I think I did something. I.. I mended a flower with the help of the Force. Right here. In these greenhouses. And then I felt it. That same access to it. Not just in me. But also in the woman tending to these gardens. She was with me when I did it. And..” she swallowed, choosing her words carefully, “And I think I helped her with her abilities. Woke them up somehow-”

He withdrew his hand as if electricity had run through the veins under his fingers, shocking him into motion. He got to his feet, unsteadily taking a few steps away from her. The pained expression he wore drained his face of what little color was left in it; his brown eyes wavering and breathing ragged and panicked as if he’d seen a ghost.

“Ben?” Rey begged, standing up too and feeling for the glass wall behind her for support. She was desperate to understand what she had done wrong in sharing this. In telling him about her discovery.

_Why did it fill him with so much fear?_

“Ben.. What-”

“Please don’t.. Don’t..” he turned away from her, voice fracturing and the Force around him falling apart with it.

_What if it wasn’t what she had told him.. What if it was her.. Just her_..

“We need to go. This can’t wait.” he suddenly ordered, forcefully regaining control over the storm brewing inside of him and deliberately ignoring the one Rey knew he could sense in her. He looked over his shoulder at her. No. Not really at her. His lowered gaze didn’t reach her.

Grinding her teeth in response to the pang of hurt spreading through her she nodded. She couldn’t speak. Didn’t know what to say if she could. Or if he would even listen to her.    

In the end she couldn’t bring him back to the light. And he knew it too. He had become even more conflicted. And it was all her fault.

Rey blinked back the angry tears as she fell into step behind him, his cloak billowing as he strode on, an unreachable island in an ocean so deep it scared her how far removed he was from her. And she from him.

_Maybe she really would have no choice but to accept Yara’s offer of help_..

(…)

The immaculately white Senate House stood like a pale but imposing specter at the heart of the plaza, its spires only just distinguishable from the deepening, steel gray sky. It seemed to him still that many eyed monster that just wouldn’t leave him alone; that wouldn’t relinquish the memories it held hostage. Despite the oncoming night there were no lights on inside, nor in the grand-looking houses surrounding it. The Chandrilans living there had fled inside, bolted doors behind them and lowered all shutters in frightened anticipation of the confrontation that would be inevitable.

The Senate House looked as abandoned as it had done ever since the New Republic had been wiped out and its victor had taken control of the planet. But looks could be deceiving. Apart from the tense, sometimes frantic buzz of dozens of life-energies behind those glossy walls, there was the occasional flash of macrobinoculars and the glint of a blaster shifting position ever so slightly on the windowsill it rested on.

Ben halted, tersely lifting an impatient finger to have the stormtroopers following in his wake come to a complete standstill too. They stopped as one, armored heels clacking against the smooth, perfect flagstones. Then there was complete silence that even dampened the sound of his breathing, making him feel even emptier than he already did.

She stood a few paces behind him, expression uncharacteristically impassive and her eyes glazed as she let them wander over their destination, the lights in those brown puddles dulled or even extinguished. He tried to form the words he wanted to say to Rey in his head, to share them telepathically, but it didn’t work. Either he was too lost in the riot that the Force around him was to be capable of it, or she had all but severed the connection; blocked him completely from her mind.

He literally winced at just how broken that one truth made him feel. He forced himself to not look back at her. To not even search for their bond he wasn’t sure was still there between them. To keep his eyes trained beyond the Senate House for the first signs of his knights’ and their units’ landing crafts. But his feigned, crumbling focus could not stop him from repeating that same tormenting reality over and over in his head.

_She knew… She must know.._

Why else would she have told him that? Been on the verge of asking him to confirm her suspicions. To admit that he had been the one responsible for her role in this story. For creating her. For burdening her with his own ceaseless fight as both the light and dark pulled and pushed him wherever they wanted him to go.

_And by not answering her he wasn’t sure if she would hate him any less.._

Columns of light burst through the gathering clouds, preceding the stocky, crudely designed landing craft. Ben latched on to their arrival, using it to turn the raw hurt raging through his chest into outward action instead. He flicked aside his cloak and unclipped his saber. A split second later it ignited with an impatient crackling as he lead the stormtroopers onward, a rain of laser bolts pelting down at them in adversarial greeting.

He deflected only those that posed a threat to both himself and Rey, letting others whizz passed and either hit or miss their target with high-pitched wails and debris-filled smoke. It was almost too easy to gain access to the entrance and step into the lofty hall. What little resistance they met on the stairs leading to the upper levels was quickly dealt with. Most of them fell back almost instantly. The real battle would be fought deeper into the heart of the building; in the vast New Republic Senate Chamber.    

_Not so much a battle as a nuisance_ , Ben thought grimly. The continuation of all these little skirmishes were not only pointless, they also stood in the way of peace. In the way of his vision of peace at least. Watching stormtroopers fan out and eradicate the would-be rebels as well as sustaining casualties themselves struck him more than ever as a sick repetition of the same circle of violence. A circle he had evidently not broken yet by simply replacing Supreme Leader Snoke. By convincing Rey to join him and abandon and decimate the Resistance in the process. It had changed everything for him. It looked like the galaxy’s change still lagged behind though. And that delay, _his_ failure to value the mere vision of a future he thought he’d deserved more than worrying about his lack of insight that would realize it, _that_ mistake might cost him everything. _It might cost him Rey.._  

She fought near him with a similar detachment, refusing to fire the weapon dangling from her hip and instead wielding the Force with a wavering accuracy and punctuated more and more by uncontrolled, untamed outbursts which knocked the Chandrilan civilians and politicians turned-inexperienced-insurgents off their feet and had them slam unforgivingly into walls or plummet down stairs and sloping corridors.

Ben effortlessly recognized the vicious streak in her attacks now, making him curse inwardly that he hadn’t done so long before now. That he hadn’t seen it. Or hadn’t _wanted_ to see. In almost every movement she unknowingly mimicked his style and technique, his aggression, his careless cruelty. He couldn’t bear to see her light dim in her growing darkness. He had promised himself he wouldn’t destroy her. _How could he keep that promise now?_   

He tentatively blocked her path forward as they were about to enter the Chamber, sending in the stormtroopers first. Judging by the sounds of fighting echoing loudly through the large, oval room, his two knights had already come in through the back door, trapping the insurgents in their pathetic choice of a fortress. Rey hesitated, a muscle in her jaw flexing in agitation now she was forced to hold back. It was clear the greater part of her didn’t even want to fight, but there was also another part that made her want to finish it quickly. But it would be over. Soon. Even without their direct involvement.

A stormtrooper went down in front of them with an agonized yell, her body toppling backwards and almost comically over a railing, taking the structure down with her. Another rushed passed both of them and kneeled down beside her mirror-image, black, gloved fingers trembling slightly as they checked for a pulse and presenting a too tempting target for the same shooter. Before Ben could react Rey had already stretched out a hand and send the oncoming fighter flying in a fatal arc through the chamber, she crashed in the crystalline fountain, broken body half submerging and floating on the gurgling water like a dead fish.

Ben could see Rey’s eyes widen in shock at what she had done. She took a belated step back as a new batch of stormtroopers came forward to take up position.

“Rey?”

She didn’t respond. Didn’t give any sign that she had heard him. Maybe his voice had simply been drowned out by the upsurge of laser fire that reached a deafening din now the end of the fighting drew near.    

He followed Rey’s gaze, reluctantly returning his own to the Chamber that he still associated with _her_. Ben could picture her vividly, standing regal and firm as she addressed the Senate; could hear the ghost of her clear, deep voice ringing in his ears as she delivered another impassioned speech; could feel the following applause reverberate in his bones even as tears had stung his eyes as he had jealously observed the rare and radiant smile she gave her audience when he so rarely got to see it anymore.

The almost grating silence roughly brought him back to the present. Ben jolted into motion, inhaling a shuddering, steadying breath as he wrung the saber in his grasp in an attempt to suffocate the memories plaguing him with it.

“See to it that they are brought to the Dominance. They shall get their wish to be reunited with their fellow dissenters.” he hissed, his vehemence stemming solely from his own impatient resentment with his past coming to life all around him regardless of his desire to kill it. Of his need to be free of it.

_He was desperate enough to be willing to do anything to achieve it at this point.._

He turned on his heels and left before the officer had finished her bow, assuring himself that Rey was just a step behind him. They wordlessly retraced their steps through the impressive building, now no more than a shell of what it had been. Even without voicing his thoughts he knew snatches of his memories merging inevitably with his dreams had drifted towards her and in a rare moment of openness she didn’t shut them, shut _him_ out, but studied them intently.

“The same one?” she inquired, voice as neutral as she could make it but her concern and curiosity was evident nonetheless.

“No.” he shot back, piqued at having been found out so easily, then added grudgingly, “The voices were though.”

That halted her in her tracks. He stubbornly strode on for a moment longer until her next words made him come to a jarring stop too.

“Mother and son..”  

He almost choked on the wave of the Force welling up inside of him. Closing his eyes he swallowed hard, then couldn’t resist glancing over his shoulder at Rey.

Ben didn’t know whether the light seemingly returning to her eyes for a fleeting moment made him even more scared…

… _Or if it gave him hope_.      

 


	23. Chapter 23

**A/N: Sorry for the late update! Thanks for all the kudos, I do love those, and I'd also love to hear your thoughts! Enjoy~**

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Chapter 23

The inert device felt cool and strangely heavy in her palm, its metallic casing matted and the cobalt stone fixed to its center with two spidery, crossing wires equally dull and lifeless. Rey closed her fingers around it and resumed, once again, her jittery pacing.

It had been hours since she’d reactivated it. She had felt increasingly nervous with every minute, every hour that had slipped by without any change. Maybe it was beyond naive to expect it to work. To hope Leia would receive the signal, wherever she was.

_That she would respond.._

Rey curved her hand into an even tighter ball around the beacon, pressing the back of it against her lips and closing her eyes as if in a silent prayer. She relied on her other senses and the compulsory repetition of the few, continuously retraced steps she took to retain their almost hypnotic momentum.

Was she being that delusional scavenger she had thought she buried a long time ago in doing this? In believing this could be how they would win? How righting this wrong could be the start of a galaxy mending itself? Or would it ultimately matter little if it could be seeing she had betrayed the Resistance leader’s trust? Now she had disappointed and abandoned every single one of them.

_And yet.._

Rey opened her eyes again, conviction racing through her, inexplicable but unstoppable. In the end, after all the fighting and hardships, maybe it would come down to a parent’s longing to be reunited with their child and that child’s willingness to be unbroken by it..

She froze and unfurled her fingers, squinting at the still dormant beacon as if it would explode if it spotted the new idea forming in her mind. The new and _dangerous_ idea. Reckless even. But what choice did she have? What other options were left? Her intuition, confused, misguided and insecure as it might have been, pointed her in this direction with a certainty she couldn’t resist. And if she was really going to place her faith, her hopes, on bringing mother and son together again, then she shouldn’t shirk the risks she needed to take. Not now. Not anymore. It was too late for that. She had passed that point some time ago.

Trying not to fully let it sink in just how desperate an act -she couldn’t exactly call it a plan after all- it was, she rushed into her room, fishing out her old, sand-blasted pouch from among her discarded clothes. She had been a different person when she had worn those. Whatever was going to happen next, she was no longer the same and wouldn’t be. _If_ she made it through all of this, that was. She was playing a high-risk, dangerous game. A last reshuffling of the cards and placing of bets before the wheel was spun.   

Taking out the rusty, slender tool, holding it deftly between her trembling fingers, the beacon innocent-looking in the other, she pried it open and, heart hammering in her throat, set to work…

(…)

She lay curled up like a ball on the sofa, clutching something to her chest he couldn’t see. Maybe it was just the substitute for an embrace, a way to feel safe enough to sleep. It must’ve been how she had cradled herself as a child and rocked her own body to that vast realm of dreams in the absence of her useless parents.

Ben had wanted to say so much when they had returned from the Senate House but he had failed to find the words. Or the right moment. And he definitely couldn’t bring himself to wake her now. He was far from superstitious, but something about disturbing the rare, blissful quiet of her current state felt inherently wrong. 

It was tempting to sit down beside her, there was plenty of room left and it had almost become a tradition between the two of them anyway. A recurring, anchoring ritual they kept coming back to even when they were both too scared to really open up their bond; when both tentatively hovered near their respective ends of it, each feverishly waiting and trapped in their tangled web of thoughts and emotions.

Still. To have her here with him, to have her give in to sleep despite his proximity, something she had diligently avoided recently, felt like a victory of sorts. A reinstated truce.

_More than that?_

_The beginning or promise of peace?_  

But no matter how tempting, he didn’t join her. He was once again too scared to sleep himself because of the dreams that may come if he did. Turning resolutely around, Ben clasped his hands together behind his back, staring out through the windows without really seeing anything. He had spent hours in near meditation like this aboard the star destroyers that had been his most frequent, unwelcoming and impersonal homes. It had never felt restorative or enlightening, but it had sometimes calmed him enough to momentarily forget about the soul-deep pain that dogged him wherever he went and whatever he did or tried to do to either get rid off it forever or use it to become stronger, not have it bleed away his strength; _break him bone by bone_.

The back of his neck prickled, he automatically reached up with one hand to settle the unnerving sensation. Ben craned his head to reluctantly glance over his shoulder, already knowing what he would see. _Who_ he would see.

The young boy he once was tumbled into existence, wrestling with an unseen, wreathing hurt and anger that made him almost trip over his own feet as he ran into the room. Chest heaving with exhaustion and sobs he frantically rubbed his eyes dry, eventually gave up the futile effort with a soundless growl and dropped his hands so they hung limply at his side. Ben turned around, hating both the pity and the disgust he felt at that tear-streaked, pale, defeated face. But it wasn’t entirely his face. There was something off about it. About this shard from the past. And it wasn’t his voice that rang in his ears now either. _It was that other boy’s.._

  _I had dream.. dream.._

Ben took a tense step closer.

_I came back.. back.. came back.._

He reached out, fingers inches from his younger self.

_I came back here and freed.._

Just a little bit further and he could disperse the memory like smoke, banish the voice it allowed access to his mind.

_I came back here and freed all of the slaves.. freed.. freed all of the slaves.._

Ben closed his fist, the boy instantly evaporated in his determined grip as did the eerily familiar, helmeted-shadow it had cast as a final reminder. The lingering echoes of that voice were drowned out by the loud, piercing chime coming from the door, prompting Rey to rouse with a grumbling groan and look, a little sheepishly, at his own undoubtedly fearful and stunned expression.

(…)

She blinked a couple of times to adjust to daylight suddenly flooding her vision and filter the excess brightness out. His outline was still half blurred, half sharp when Ben jarred into motion.

“What- What’s wrong?” Rey slurred drowsily, catching his ashen-colored face and shocked scowl as he rounded the sofa and disappeared from view.

She made to slide off herself but her body, still a little punch-drunk on sleep, was too late to respond perfectly to the internal command. Almost falling to her knees, Rey latched onto support just in time. Rising more slowly and carefully to her feet the second try, she still didn’t react quickly enough to capture something small and hard escaping her loosened hold. The beacon, which she had clutched tightly to her chest as she’d fallen asleep, clattered on the floor; it’s center stone steadily pulsating a vivid, deep blue-

The sound of returning footsteps made her snatch it up, nails scratching the marble and a vein in her neck throbbing madly in a panicked exultancy. She had only just slipped it back behind her belt when Ben reappeared. He wasn’t alone.

“My apologies for waking you, Empress. But I came bearing joyous news. You will be most pleased to hear that the reconstruction of our- _your_ fleet is progressing as planned. The repairs are even slightly ahead of schedule and so is the completion of the very first trident-class star destroyer.” General Hux announced as he strutted into the room all self-satisfied smugness, “Which is why I have come to pass on Lady Varess’ invitation to witness the Eradicator’s maiden voyage. She pressed me to assure you that her villa in Canto Bight provides the best view for the occasion. Her shipyard’s located on the edges of the Corporate sector after all. And what better way to celebrate this glorious day than to herald the First Order’s new era with our most fervid supporters and most generous investors on Cantonica. It will offer us the perfect opportunity to show our superiority to the galaxy at large-”

“Ready our shuttle.” Ben cut him off absentmindedly, the same blend of confusion and clarity she thought she’d glimpsed before the General’s arrival still riddling his eyes.

If Hux felt any indignation now his lengthy eloquence hadn’t received more than a curt, disinterested affirmation that was at once a dismissal, he didn’t show it.

“Excellent. It will be my honor to escort your vessel there.” he simply nodded, looking highly pleased. No doubt the prospect of the rebirth of what Rey knew he considered _his_ armada as well as the opportunity it provided to spout propaganda had put him in a very good mood.          

“Empress. Emperor.” Hux inclined his head at each of them then turned on his heels and marched out of the room, chin aloft and hands clasped in the nook his back still provided despite his unnaturally straight posture.

“Be watchful.” Ben instructed her, draping the cloak over her shoulders with his thoughts seemingly still far away.

“Ben-”

“The sooner we get back, the better.” he stopped her, finishing pulling on his second glove and holding out his hand for her to take. “We need to talk..”

He looked almost startled by his own determined tone, eyes flashing from side to side as they kept tentatively searching for then deliberately missing hers.

“Yes.” Rey mumbled back, interlacing her fingers with his and yet feeling somehow too nervous to leech from them the support she could sense he wanted but shied away from too, “We do.. We _will_.”

As they left she could feel the beacon thrum against her hipbone with every step she took, the inaudible but to her overly perceptible humming it emitted spreading through her entire body, making her heart pump louder and her blood rush harder in its contagious impatience.

(…)

After their cold journey through space, the clammy warmth of Cantonica felt oppressive and heavy. The sweltering air burned the insides of his lungs and carried the nauseating, pervasive scents of perfume, exotic food and strong drinks which had drifted outside the moment the gilded gate had swung open to receive them. Ben instinctively reached for her hand, missing her fingers curled around his, then thought better of the obvious and dangerous sign of intimacy it would be and tried passing off the flexing of his fingers by tugging at the rim of his glove with his other hand.

Smiling broadly Lady Varess welcomed them with a gracious curtsey, her diamond-laden headdress tinkling and shimmering and her richly embroidered dress fanning out all around her. The Pantoran lead them through her ostentatious villa, servants and guests lining up to pay their respects as they made their way to a large balcony. The structure jutting out from the house offered a magnificent view off of the cliff and the vast ocean beyond.

Listening to the soft echoes of the surf some distance below instead of their host’s endless stream of praise and gratitude, he could sense Rey’s unease growing with every second that passed, it was a palpable buzz that made the Force around her clash against then quickly recoil from her again.       

Yara and Marrek Ren were positioned like unmoving, foreboding sentinels on either side of the archway separating the villa from the balcony. Their dark, layered robes fluttered as haughty looking guests cut the line and paraded passed them to seize their turn to display their wealth and status to their equally zealous competitors.  

General Hux, meanwhile, stood but a few paces behind Lady Varess, himself and Rey. Completely ignoring the handful of high-ranking officers surrounding him, he stared, utterly transfixed, at the sky overhead in an almost feral anticipation.

Not even half of everyone and everything happening around him penetrated his pensive mind, most of his thoughts were being consumed by the latest nightmare he had perceived with waking eyes this time. He mentally replayed it over and over again, afraid to trust that he knew who had spoken to him. Who had somehow reached him through the Force or had become such an integral part of it that the Force and him were the same thing now. Who was tied to him in more than blood now.. But that didn’t make him understand what it all meant; understand why it felt strengthening instead of undermining that he had been wrong in everything he thought he had understood about him; _his grandfather_..

There was an outburst of jubilant cheers and vivacious applause as a three-pronged star destroyer appeared in orbit, growing larger and larger when it breached the atmosphere. As a model of the perfection of the military might that had allowed the First Order to dominate a galaxy weakened and vulnerable after the Empire had fallen and the New Republic had taken too long to rebuild, the Eradicator looked every inch ready to secure them the future he had foreseen for the First Order; the future that he had longed to control, to bend to his will and his will alone. The future that he had wanted to share so badly with Rey it had blinded him to so much. _A future that_ , Ben thought, looking up at the looming star destroyer containing thousands of lives, cheered on by the hundreds of guests that had invested in it and in the destruction it promised, _a future that felt like it had shed its veneer to reveal its ugly, corrupting, rotting flesh underneath_ …    

(…)

Despite the humidity and stifling climate that wafted in through the unglazed arches she felt a constant chill crawl up and down her spine. The layered, indigo dress she wore swayed ever so slightly around her form as she stood there and gazed up at the brand new star destroyer, the long sash draped over one shoulder rippled just above the polished floor; a deep blue river trapped in stone.

Behind her Rey could feel rather than see the hundreds of guests milling about inside the extravagantly luxurious villa like bees in a hive, their excited, greedy buzzing at the sight that horrified her made her feel sick to her stomach.

“I can’t _bear_ to be here..” she whispered to Ben next to her. Unlike her he faced the crowd, scanning them with an indecipherable scowl, his tall, muscular frame half shielding her from view. She could feel his back reassuringly against her side, his black cloak shuffling as he tilted his head and strained his ears to pick up her words among the cacophony of chatter and laughter.

“Not with all these..” she paused at the bitterness rising inside her then allowed it to imbue her words, she was passed the point of not calling things what they were, of calling _them_ what they were, “With these _leeches_ celebrating their latest toy for the war. But I guess they have every right, they’re the only ones really benefiting from this war after all. The only ones profiting from creating and sustaining it. Aren’t they the only reason there still _is_ one?”

There was an excited rise in jubilation as if in answer to her question when a tell-tale, jingling rain of fat, gleaming coins sputtered out of a silver, glittering, indoor fountain, the beings surrounding it applauded and toasted to whoever of the many sleek industrialists or ambitious admirals had gambled and won back either his fortune or his medals.

Rey gnashed her teeth in response, too disgusted to turn around and see the scene for herself when the sounds of it alone painted a vivid enough picture. Although the splendor and excessive luxury of the villa was a glaring contrast with Niima’s outpost on Jakku, the gluttony and greed she could feel oozing around her now like the greasy, unctuous bubbles bursting through a mud-pit’s surface didn’t feel any less disgusting than Unkar Plutt’s corrupted idea of generosity and fairness as he cheated the harder working and more deserving lifeforms he shared the planet with out of their already meager food-portions. 

“Ben..” she whispered, shaking off the memory and sensing the same revolt like a growing tremor in his Force signature, prompting her to want now more than ever to act on it. _Finally_ to act on it.  

“We’re never going to rule the First Order and bring peace. _They_ rule it. And they do it at the expense of us. Jedi. Sith. Rebels.”

Aware that she was echoing at least partly a list he had enumerated to her what seemed both a lifetime and a split second ago in Snoke’s throne room burning and falling apart like the Supremacy, like the _galaxy_ itself, Rey expanded it in her head with the insight the empathy and loyalty of that one knight of Ren had provided her with:   _First Order soldiers_ …

Ben stirred at the sudden clarity emanating from her energy in the Force. He turned his back on the thrilled crowd, locking his inquiring gaze with hers. “What did you do?”

His earnest tone and sincere wish, _yearning_ , to know what was going on in her mind made the few remaining vestiges of reserve and fear instantly crumble. She couldn’t do this on her own. _They were meant to do it together.._

“I.. I looked into her mind. Ika Ren’s mind.” she started, releasing her fragile hold on their bond so it flowed freely if a little awkwardly at first, the current strengthening and quickening as Ben gratefully and almost covetously opened himself up and followed it to her thoughts and the images dominating it. 

“I didn’t know what I was going to find there but..” she paused, closing her eyes briefly to derive the final confirmation she needed from the pieces she had collected in her mind, “What if we’re no different from those stormtroopers? Orphans caught in a web of violence that none of us made. What if the Jedi and Sith.. What if we’re nothing but dispensable holochess pieces too? Slaves to a war which we fight to regain the same freedom that was stolen from both sides?”

Rey felt the Force prickle all of her senses, a strong current of electricity running but an inch from her skin that fed her fervent conviction. A conviction still so new and exhilarating. A conviction tantalizingly close to a staggering, overpowering hope. She watched Ben’s eyes grow wide as her words sank in, felt his energy fluctuate then strengthen. Acting on instinct she took a step closer so that his breath ghosted on her forehead as she grasped the end of his sleeve with her fingers, urging him to listen. To be convinced. To finally both be convinced now she knew what they were meant to do. Now she knew what she _wanted_ them both to be meant to do. It felt more right, more unavoidable too, than anything that had happened or that she had tried to do ever since her path had crossed with that orange ball of a droid that fateful day in the Jakku desert.

“We can’t wait and play this by their rules. It’s not a game. For them, yes. But not for us. We have the opportunity to end it. To stop them. To stop this war. If we do this in Ika’s stead.. The stormtroopers will join us. Most of them. _Enough_ will.” she emphasized, assurance slipping a little through her fingers but she wouldn’t let it, “This might be the only way and we can’t afford to wait until the entire fleet is rebuilt. Until they invent another weapon or ship or.. Or a reason to prolong this war that isn’t ours. We can’t wait for another opportunity, another way, not anymore.”

The determination in her voice lingered like an echo and it hovered between them as Rey stared up at him. The silence following her words, _her insane offer of a mutiny_ , was tense and absolute; an outstretched moment in which the noises around them grew indistinct and far away and everyone morphed into blurred figures moving but on the periphery of their existence. His dark eyes were riddled with shock, their color at once retreating from their edges then spilling across them. 

“Ben? Are you even listening-”

He blinked, his wavering presence immediately solidifying again as he looked at her intently, gaze no longer turned inwards but bursting out as he transferred the images at the front of his mind to hers. Images of the specter of his younger self speaking with a voice that was not his. A voice that was yet  impossibly but undeniably tied to Ben. _A voice that promised to free the slaves_..

“Yes. I am. Maybe should have long before now. To my own doubts too. To my grandfather. To _you_. Rey..” his voice almost broke with longing, it dropped to a deep, hoarse whisper as he brushed her hair behind her ear and cradled her face with one assuring, comforting hand, “You’re right..”

Her breath hitched at the sheer and  overwhelming relief rushing through her, tempting a careful smile to break through. Then the haze around them diffused as the beacon pressed against her hipbone throbbed urgently and excitedly. She hastily fumbled to free it from its hiding place under her belt.

“What is it?” Ben asked, frowning at her sudden fidgeting.

“ _Treason_.” someone else answered in a tone laced with cold triumph before Rey could utter a single word.

General Hux strutted towards them, flanked by the two knights of Ren while guests and officers alike froze in their movements, eyes of all sizes and colors boring into her and Ben; the beacon heavy and gleaming in her palm flashing a bright, incriminating blue.   


End file.
